In an unsolicited moment of sedentary solitude, I have found myself yet again at another crossroads situated somewhere between unbridled wanderlust and the abhorrence for what Gen-Z has coined “adulting.” As I attempt coercing myself to reflect upon the multitude of reasons my gratitude at current should overshadow the inner angst I possess while aging into my mid-thirties, I cannot refrain from reciting the words of Paul Beatty’s ‘Mickey Mouse Build a House’ incessantly in the depths of not only my mind, but also in my jaded soul. The words are frank. To the point. And yes, unfiltered.
don’t you ever feel
like in the game of life
you was the last motherfucker to say
NOT IT
The words of Beatty somehow perfectly capture a decade of my life in which I always seemed to be on the brink of self-destruction, but somehow survived and lived to recount. My twenties were tempestuous to say the least, and although I have found myself in the midst of the uncomfortable calm subsequent to a wayward storm, there is a part of me undeniably thirsting for another drink from the chalice of anarchy. A chalice betrothed upon a pillar of modern-day society which, although we mock and make every attempt to devalorize, we each, in our own right, fuel and subconsciously revere.
It is here we confirm that the devil not only wears Prada, but she dons a hue of Armani Luminous silk and douses her lashes in calculated strokes of Dior Show. She commemorates her evening’s conquests upon her cheeks with an orgasm fabricated by NARS, all before accentuating her pout with a vibrant stain crafted by M.A.C. and mystifying her impenetrable aura with a splash of Tom Ford.
THIS, my comrades, is the business and the empire of beauty. It is here that we question if our choices feed a carnage which demolishes our sense of self-worth and beauty or, conversely, if we have bought into a multi-billion-dollar franchise which encourages and inspires the aforementioned. In complete translucence, my personal response is greatly dictated and potentially varied upon the way in which the question is posed, and the elements utilized to determine insight and opinion.
As a self-proclaimed veteran in the beauty industry, I admittedly was a late bloomer. I say this within the context of the right of passage into womanhood via make-up and its endless possibilities for self-expression created by the right (or sometimes very wrong) selection of shadow, various mediums of liner and infinite textures and shades of lip color. If I were to travel back in time to chronicle a spoiler alert for my 16-year-old-self, there’s a definite likelihood I would be labeled a con upon sharing information I’d one day don a brush belt, slang make-up and paint human canvases for a nine to five. It isn’t so much because I did not possess the aptitude for glorified face painting, but rather because make-up was considered contraband for me in my household.
Despite having a cosmetologist grandmother (albeit on the maternal side), my father construed the notion that make-up acted as the gateway drug to corrupting adolescence and fast-tracking me to teen pregnancy, underage drinking and multitude of other sinfulness. The majority of my childhood was spent brandishing forbidden nail polish at school and quickly coming home to remove it before my father had a chance to examine my hands and know I’d gone rogue for a, now naked, handful of glorious hours. I suppose an innate gift was stifled for almost two decades unless my artwork created with the acceptable mediums of tag board and markers were more closely examined.
Fast forward to the end of the initial decade of the millennium and there I am in all of my noir-on-noir glory, strapped and heavily armed with a well-crafted brush belt, ready to wage a war on compliant victim’s bare face. After years of suppressing a desire to get elbows deep in the Devil’s paint I had arrived and earned myself a position with arguably the world’s most respected, revered and envied cosmetic label to date. And, to put it simply, nobody couldn’t tell me a damn thang for those four and a half years of blood, sweat, tears and product stained hands.
Upon this current reflection, I reluctantly suppose it should serve as no fascination what the beauty industry has evolved to. It was egos then and continues to breed unbridled egos now. Recollecting that mindset assists in my ascertaining who and what a make-up artist is today in an age when the industry I loved so much has become completely bastardized. Corrupted in a way I never fathomed an external force had the capability and gusto of doing.
In once fowl ass swoop, the age of the internet perversely manipulated the beauty industry into a culture in which the least deserving, the least qualified and yet the most self-confident and self-obsessed have now taken over. They’ve assumed this unnerving control in which being self-taught serves as formal training and certification is merely earned via hours of watching YouTube and reading a beauty blog curated by someone who’s equally as novice as their audience. The blind now leads the blind in an enterprise in which vision is the only way to innovation and excellence.
Musing to myself at my current crossroads, the nostalgia of my most formative years creates a solemn reverence for what once was and now ceases to ever be again. Analyzing this juxtaposition of historical authenticity verses present day counterfeits reinforces that my retirement as a (legitimately) advanced certified make-up artist remains the wistful truth. However, that retirement does not dictate an abstinence from an industry that taught me lessons beyond my moving canvases, temporary creations, and maddening ‘skill drills.’
I survived the ‘Golden Era’ of make-up and still live to tell the glamorous, the sub-par and the truth of it all. These tales are best presented in the same manner as photographs in bona fide artist’s portfolio – UNFILTERED.
-Tatiana ‘Mackaveli’ Manaea
My Ambitions Az a HOYA 