Podcast #1
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the very first episode of the Artist to Artist podcast. I don't have an intro. I have no fancy music. This is my first time doing anything like this So I hope you'll bear with me just through the next few episodes until I figure all of this out. Before I started today I just wanted to thank all of the artists that sent me ideas for what they wanted to hear on the podcast I have an entire list of topics i'm going to be covering But it did seem like a lot of you wanted to hear my story So I figured this would be a perfect place to start for our first episode.
My name is Angie. I'm a full time freelance makeup and hair artist. I've been full time for about 12 years. I'm also a makeup artist educator. I work out of Toronto in Canada, which of course makes me Canadian. And no, I have not worked with Drake or the Biebs because I actually don't do much work with celebrities.
The work that I do is very reflective of the market that I work in. Toronto is a very commercial market, so I do a little bit of everything from beauty campaigns to actual commercials, e commerce jobs, [00:01:00] jewelry campaigns, special events, and of course I do bridal as well. I should also mention I'm not unionized and I'm not repped by an agency, so I'm completely freelance.
I used to be repped by an agency when I started my career as a full time artist, and I will talk about that just a little bit later on. I wanted to make sure I mention the type of work I do because I think it's important that if you're going to be taking advice or career guidance or learning techniques from a makeup artist educator, they kind of have to be doing the work you're currently doing or the work you want to do, or else I think you'll find for some things the information might not be useful to you, it may not apply.
So I'm always trying to be as clear as possible about the type of work that I do. I always tell people I'm just a regular makeup artist. I do. very average work. And when I say that, I just mean when you have a job as a freelance makeup artist in Toronto, what my career is like and the type of clients that I work on is very reflective of what most artists in this market are going to be doing.
So that's why I always say I'm just a [00:02:00] regular makeup artist. Now, fair warning. I started doing makeup on people when I was 16 and I'm 42 now. So we do have a lot of ground to cover today. I have my notes in front of me. I'm going to try to be as concise as I can. There has been a lot of twists and turns, a lot of ups and downs.
So I'm just going to try to walk you through some of the more, I guess, important moments in my career or things that I think you'll be able to relate to. And then if you do have any follow up questions, which I'm sure there are going to be some follow up questions, especially with the agency stuff, I'll leave.
Info in the show notes. Actually, you know what just send me a direct message on the artist to artist instagram If you do have any follow up questions, and we'll just see where those questions take us All right, let's start at the beginning My first job as a teenager was at a place called shopper's drug mart if you're canadian You know exactly what this is if you're not canadian I would say it's kind of like a combination of like a Walgreens and a Target.
It's basically a drugstore that sells other stuff and they have a beauty counter or a cosmetic counter as well. I guess you could say I'm actually a nepo [00:03:00] baby because my mom was the person who got me the job because she was a store manager at the time and it was a job that I had in the summer that I was going to be turning 16.
I was just doing cashier stuff and that really didn't last long because I met the group of women who worked in the cosmetics department. And I thought they were just so fabulous. Makeup was on point, hair was done, fragrance was on. The acrylic square tip French manicure nails were on point. Remember it was 1997.
That's probably a good reference point so you can get the visual. In high school I was someone that had very low self confidence, low self esteem. It's still something that I deal with. So of course seeing these women looking amazing. Selling makeup. It was something that I wanted to be around. So I asked if I could switch to the cosmetics department I should mention I was a very creative and artistic kid So naturally I was kind of drawn to makeup and makeup application, but really there was no formal training at all provided I think it was a situation where I filled out a booklet and there was a test [00:04:00] at the end of the booklet and that's how I became a certified cosmetician.
That's what I was called at the time. I didn't know anything about being a makeup artist other than what I saw on TV or what I would read about in magazines, but I was just very fearless at that time. Jumping into the cosmetics department, I wanted to do makeup applications. I was just, I guess you could say ignorance.
is bliss, right? That's, that's the saying that comes to mind. So if someone wanted their makeup done at the counter, I would do it. If someone wanted to get their makeup touched up, I would jump at the chance to do it. Some of the other women that I was working with weren't too keen on doing the makeup application, so it quickly became something that I would just do when I work my shifts there.
It still, to this day, is one of my absolute favorite jobs. I kept that job for 11 or 12 years, I think. It was my high school job. I had it when I went to university and I kept it. Even after I graduated university. I really enjoyed working in that environment. I pretty much grew up in that environment I love the brand trainings that we used to get this is where I learned a lot about skincare skin [00:05:00] types I got tons of product knowledge from my time there And doing makeup at a retail level is just an amazing way to learn to be quick.
You can learn about your products and your product knowledge. You get to work with different skin types, different skin tones, different ages. So that was really where I got my foundational training. I actually didn't have any formal training in makeup artistry until way later in my career when I took a special effects course.
It was just an out of kit effects course at a college. And I will talk to you about that a little later, why I ended up doing that. But other than Shoppers Drug Mart, I really had no formal training in makeup artistry at all. I did end up going to university and graduating. I studied English and art history, and I used my Shoppers Drug Mart job to pay for school.
I also started freelancing part time when I was about 19 or 20 because I met so many different people from working in retail. I started getting clients. for special event makeups, things like that. And I just remember being, thinking to myself, wow, it's really cool that people want to pay me to do makeup, but I [00:06:00] never really thought of it as more than just a way to get some extra cash to pay for school.
I also started doing weddings in my early twenties, which when I think about that now, Was so insane. I had no idea what I was doing even just from a business perspective It was pretty crazy. My first wedding ever was an indian wedding just so you can get the full picture I was so fearless back then. I wish I still had some of that now I'm, definitely not in the same state of mind.
I didn't have a mentor. I didn't have a teacher I didn't have anyone telling me what this job was all about I didn't even know anybody else that was working as a makeup artist. So I was very much Going through all of this on my own figuring it out Just screwing up making tons of mistakes and things were like that for me for a really long time Once I graduated university I started a period of my life where I just had a bunch of different jobs because I never was It's very happy with any of the jobs that I had, and I'm sure there's a lot of you listening to this right now who are feeling the same way, and that's because at the time I didn't [00:07:00] realize I was a creative, I didn't realize I wanted to be an entrepreneur, it, having a business as a makeup artist was just not on my radar.
Also remember I was working full time, I was balancing Shoppers Drug Mart and freelancing, so for a good number of years I was working six or seven days a week, I was working in the evenings, on holidays, Fast forward to my very last full time job, which I had around the age of 25 or 26. I was doing administrative work for a marketing company, and I had the opportunity to work with a bunch of creatives and freelancers.
And I was just around people who were showing up every day to work. They were so happy about what they were doing. And the more time I spent at this job, I started thinking about myself and what would make me happy. And I wanted to show up to work every day, feeling like I was accomplishing something and not just punching the clock.
I just started reflecting more on what I really wanted to do, what I enjoyed doing, and the only thing that kept coming up for me was makeup. I loved applying makeup. I loved the variety of jobs that I was doing. I just [00:08:00] loved doing something from start to finish, the whole process of the makeup application.
I loved being a makeup artist, but at that point in my life, Even though I did have clients and I was doing makeup kind of freelance and part time I didn't even really consider myself a makeup artist, but that's probably something we can talk about on another episode I didn't have a solid plan. I just figured that if I wanted to think about going into makeup more seriously I knew I had to have a better portfolio So I started networking more making more of an effort to meet different people do creatives or TFPs Whatever you call them and because of that I also started getting more jobs So I was using up all my vacation days and my spare time sick days from my full time job.
And in this whole process, I think I'd mentioned to my hairstylist at the time that I was thinking about doing makeup more seriously. And he mentioned he had a client that was a makeup artist that was repped by a really well known agency in Toronto and that he would connect us. I ended up getting an email address for a makeup artist named Sherry Stroh.
You can look her up and I will link you to her Instagram in the show notes. I emailed Sherry. We had a little bit of back [00:09:00] and forth and she agreed to meet me for coffee. And I think. That's the moment where things started really changing for me Sherry was a very experienced very well respected artist in the city and she was agency rep So when I met her for coffee, I was so excited.
I was of course a little bit intimidated a little bit nervous I just had a bunch of questions for her about everything I could think of and she was so generous with her knowledge. We talked about what it's like to work full time as a makeup artist. She gave me feedback on my book. We talked about the types of jobs that she does, what I would have to improve on in my kit, what I would have to improve on in my portfolio.
Sherry also mentioned that the agency she was repped with, they do open calls every week to meet new artists. And she said I should make an appointment, bring in my book, and that she would kind of give them the heads up that I would be emailing them. I emailed the agency. We scheduled a time to meet. I went in there with my book and at this time it was an actual hard copy portfolio.
You had to have all your photos printed. I think I met with two agents. I think [00:10:00] it was two. I was so nervous. I can barely remember how the meeting went, but I do remember what we talked about and they asked me a little bit about my experience and where I had learned to do makeup and they were fine with me being self taught and I had.
so much retail experience that that actually worked in my favor. I also mentioned I had some preexisting clients, so that looked good to the agency. And they just proceeded to kind of give me an assessment on my book. And I felt that their critiques of my book were very fair. They let me know I just needed better photos.
I had to work with better photographers, better models. I had to show more hair focus shoots because at that time, my book did not show a lot of hairstyling and to be working regularly in Toronto, and this is still the case. You need to do makeup and hair. So that's something that I needed to work on. And basically the way we left the meeting was that I would keep them updated if I got any new work in my book and we would just keep in touch.
And that was that me meeting Sherry going to that meeting with the agency was really the catalyst to me seriously pursuing a career in makeup artistry because I got a little taste. of what it [00:11:00] could be like. And when I got to the agency and I saw the kind of work they were doing and I saw work from other artists in the agency, it just got me really motivated to start taking things way more seriously than I was before.
My next step, of course, because this was just the logical thing for me to do, was to shop around. And at that time there were only two other agencies in the city who repped makeup artists. So I emailed both of them. One of the agencies never got back to me. I must have emailed them like 10 or 15 times.
They never ever responded to me. The second agency I emailed agreed to meet for like a similar thing. It was an open call and that meeting went so badly. The agent I met with. looked at my book and told me essentially at that time I wouldn't be able to do anything more than maybe assist at a fashion show, which of course was devastating to me.
The feedback, the way it was delivered, I think, I think it's fair to say it was a little harsh, but looking back at it now, they really weren't wrong because all they had to judge me on were the photos from my book, and my book was not strong. [00:12:00] It didn't show a variety of work. I hadn't worked with any up and coming photographers yet.
I wasn't working with really great models. It didn't show that I could do anything with hair and it didn't show who I was as an artist because I didn't know who I was at as an artist at that time. It made me look very inexperienced the way my book was laid out and that was the truth. I didn't have that kind of experience as a makeup artist.
I had some previous experience but it wasn't aligned with the experience. an agency artist would need. Before I left that meeting, the agent I met with told me to go and look at the agency website, look at the type of work the artists who were represented by the agency, look at what they were doing and use that as a guideline.
And that was a huge learning experience for me. And if you're listening to this now and you want to be rep by an agency, go and look at the agency websites. Look at the artists on their roster and look at the caliber of work they're creating and that really should be your baseline That's kind of what you need to aim for and what you need to work towards after those meetings I [00:13:00] just continued doing my thing.
Of course, I still had my full time job I was actively pursuing anything I could that was makeup related because now I had a goal in front of me. I had something to work towards, but I have to be honest at this point, I still don't think I understood what it meant to work as a full time makeup artist, but that's also probably going to be a story for another podcast.
A few weeks after I had the meeting with Sherry's agency, I got a call from that agency to assist another artist who was repped by the agency on a music video. Now I should pause. here because something you should know about me is that I have been obsessed with music videos since I was about three years old.
I used to sit at home in front of the TV and actually make music video mixtapes, like actual tapes. So when I got a call to assist on a music video for a fairly well known band in Toronto, I thought this was the moment for me. I thought this was going to change my life forever. It was one of the worst jobs I've ever had.
Working on music videos. It was terrible. I think it's still terrible. I stopped doing them a long time ago And I [00:14:00] think I should have known that was the first job that I learned that not everything is as it seems which was It's a valuable lesson to learn, and I kept learning this lesson the more jobs I started getting.
It was a horribly long, extremely low paying music video shoot, but it was my first time assisting another artist. It was my first time on a real music video set. And then over the next couple of weeks, I assisted this artist a few more times, and I assisted other artists from this agency, and I have to tell you, I was working with Some of the best of the best in Toronto, it was very intimidating, but probably one of the best learning experiences I've ever had.
When you see a more experienced artist work, you see what they actually do in person. It's very eye opening and it showed me that I needed to put a lot more work in to get on their level Because my work where it was what I was doing how I was doing makeup It wasn't good [00:15:00] enough and it didn't look good enough Let me just catch you up to where we are in this story at this point.
I'm getting into my later 20s I'm balancing a full time job with my freelance clients. I think I ended up leaving shoppers drug mart at some point during my later 20s, and now add in the odd job that I'm getting through the agency. And remember, these, the agency jobs happen during the week, because this is when people shoot things.
So now I'm having to balance all of this, and this went on for a fairly significant period of time. But the great thing is, I was totally excited about it. I was willing to put in the work because I could see my path forming. There was a lot of work that I had to do ahead of me, but I continued to improve my book.
I took a college course at night to learn more about hairstyling because I had absolutely no training in that. Well, I had no training in makeup. But more importantly, I had no training in hairstyling and I needed to get better faster. So I went to a college course at night, learned the basics like roller sets and just basic hairstyling techniques.
And then I also [00:16:00] enrolled in that special effects course, which was an out of kit effects. And that just means really simple, uh, special effects that you can do with basic products in your kit. Because on certain commercial jobs, there were things that you had to know about. And this is what Sherry gave me some advice on.
So I took. Another evening course at a local college in that. It was a crazy time, but I was just so motivated, but everything was just becoming so clear in terms of what I needed to do and what I needed to work on to be able to do makeup more seriously. It got to the point where I started getting calls from the agency for jobs that I was just doing on my own.
So no more assisting. Now, mind you, these jobs were very low paying, and these were jobs that a lot of the other artists or all of the other artists in the agency definitely didn't want to do, which is why they were coming to me. I took advantage of all these opportunities. And I am telling you, I did some very, very, very terrible jobs, but I did meet some clients that I actually still have today.
And I will do a whole podcast on agency [00:17:00] representation, maybe more than one, actually, because there's a lot that goes on. There's a lot of ins and outs, and I'm just not going to touch on it today because I wanted to give you the. bird's eye view of how my career started, but there is a lot that happened at that time for me.
It got to the point where the agency was now calling me a couple of times per week, whether it was for jobs or for creatives that they were looking for a makeup artist for. The other thing that happened was that it became very clear to me. That if I wanted to improve my makeup applications and learn the business and really have a shot at building a career I needed more time because I didn't have a mentor to help me.
I didn't have teachers that I could go to I didn't have close friends that could really help me out I was starting to get to know more makeup artists But I wasn't close enough to really talk to them about the business. I just knew I needed to be fully immersed in the industry. I needed to make myself available for more opportunities.
And I knew that I had to make a choice. So there was one day where I just got home, [00:18:00] and I told my boyfriend, who's now my husband, that I wanted to quit my full time job. We talked about it. He backed me 100%. The whole time I was working on all of these things, I was also saving money. So I knew I had some money saved for the first couple of months in hindsight that what I saved was not even close to being enough.
But that's something we can also talk about in another episode. I wasn't in debt. So I was, I had used my time. Balancing all of these things to get myself in the best position I could to be able to pursue makeup artistry more seriously. We had this discussion and the next day I went in, I gave my two weeks notice.
The day I quit my full time job, I can still remember this day like it was yesterday. I finished my day. I think I had some cake. I had all of my stuff in a brown box. I went to my car and I just sat and cried in my car because never in my life had I taken a risk that big. And I think at that point I didn't even fully understand how big a risk I [00:19:00] was taking.
Taking, but I had never put my needs first. I had never thought about myself as a business owner. I don't even think I still thought of myself as a professional makeup artist. I had just never done anything on this scale for myself. So it was very emotional for me. And also I was now around the age of. 30.
So I felt it was now or never, but I also felt I had a lot of catching up to do just from my age and from my lack of experience and just being self taught. So there was just a lot of work to be done. I can't remember how long it took me to get officially signed by the agency because they don't sign you right away.
But let's say. Maybe a year after I quit my full time job, I got signed as what's called an emerging artist. So you're just a younger, or not even younger, just not as developed as the artists on the full roster. And I wouldn't use this as a reference point. Some agencies take a couple years, others are a bit faster.
And then, so a year after I quit my job, I got signed to their emerging artists list. And let's say another year and a half or so to move up to the same [00:20:00] roster as all the other artists I had assisted earlier and had gotten to know. You know, it could have been a little bit longer than that. It's such a blur for me, but that was basically the trajectory.
I ended up staying and working with the agency for, I think it was four or five years in total, including that time that I was just working with them when I wasn't officially signed. And then I left to go completely freelance after that. And that, of course, the reason why I did that is definitely a topic for another episode.
I will say this, and I'm definitely not. It's been a very long, difficult journey for me, just to give you some reference points because it took me such a long time to figure everything out. Once I quit my full time job, it probably took me maybe 5 years after going full time to build a somewhat regular client roster.
I would say probably took me 7 or 8 years after I quit my full time job to be able to earn enough where I could start spending a little extra. On vacations on things for myself on upgrading my kit I will also tell you it did take me a long [00:21:00] time to really improve my makeup Applications to get them on the level that everyone else was on and it was just a matter of me Doing repetition seeing my work on camera.
So that took quite a long time as well Regardless of how long this journey has been how much of a struggle it's been quitting my full time job Becoming a makeup artist full time is not something I have ever regretted. It's Not an easy path, and I think the challenging thing is that all of us have a different journey and we all get to where we are in different ways.
So if you took ten makeup artists, put us in a room, and asked everybody how they got to where they are, you're gonna hear ten different stories. So this can be very inspiring, but it can also be very frustrating because there is no clear path, there's no ten step process you can take. So if you're listening and you're looking for for that five step, 10 step process.
You're looking to the key to unlock everything for yourself. It just doesn't really work like that. And all you really have to do is start moving in the direction that you want to go. And you also have to do everything all at [00:22:00] once and just continue doing all the things to create opportunities for yourself, if that makes any sense.
And as we get to know each other through these podcasts. and the more content that I'm sharing to you on Artist to Artist. I think you will hear me say momentum is a very big thing. I will probably talk about this repeatedly. You need to create momentum. And what that means is that you need to keep moving forward.
You have to stay busy. You have to continuously work to improve your skills, to expand your network, to improve your book, to post more on social. You are responsible for creating opportunities for yourself. Nobody owes you anything. And that's very much the truth behind all of this. The reason I had the opportunity to leave my full time job to pursue makeup artistry full time was because once I decided that's the direction that I wanted to go in, I did everything I could to move in that direction.
So it does require a full commitment in order to be successful. Once I quit my job, this is actually when the real work started for me. Going from a full time well [00:23:00] paying job to making zero dollars for the first little while and not knowing when your next Next paycheck is going to arrive. It was a very difficult first few years, but I just kept doing the things that got me to that point.
Initially I went all in on everything. I said yes to everything. I met as many new people as I could. I did tons of creatives. I took any opportunity to improve my book that I could, and slowly over time. Things just started happening where I started getting assisting jobs and then it moved to getting my own jobs.
And even though those jobs were terrible, I was starting to make money doing makeup. And then the rates for the jobs got a little higher and my clients started getting better. And then the number of clients that I had started to grow. And then there was kind of this domino effect. And here I am 12 years later talking to you on this podcast from hearing my story.
I hope you'll understand why I started artists to artists in the first place. It took me such a long time to learn how to do this job, how to figure it all out. It took me a long time to start making good money. And that's because this industry, [00:24:00] it really is like the wild West and you need someone around you who's done it already to help guide you through.
Or else your your journey is probably going to be longer and more challenging than it has to be. All of my content, webinars, courses, they exist because they contain the stuff I would have needed to learn or hear when I was trying to get into this and build my own career. That's really the perspective that I'm coming from with this.
There's so many people competing to do the same job we want to do. There's so many ups and downs that you're not going to be prepared for. If I would have just known a few more artists when I was younger, this probably would have unfolded in a much different way. I think I maybe would have started working as an artist.
Sooner. I would have gotten more training, more information. Even in those early years, when I quit my full time job, I think things would have been different for me if I just had more general knowledge about how everything goes. And if you've made it this far in this podcast, here's a plot twist for you.
At the end of last year, I lost my biggest [00:25:00] client. It's a client I've had for almost 10 years. And they made up, let's say On average, about 40 percent of my income. So that was a huge hit to me. But this is the ups and downs that you go through in this industry. Having lost a client that large, this will happen a few times in your career.
It's happening to me right now. So I've had to pivot. I've had to be resourceful and I've had to lean back into the things that I was doing 12 years ago when I quit my full time job to rebuild. And this is the cycle of being a makeup artist. This is the cycle of being a business owner. So we really are kind of all doing this together.
And that is my story. I hope I didn't bore you with all of this information. I do want to talk more about agency representation. I also want to talk about what to expect in those first few years of pursuing your career as a makeup artist, because it is a critical time in your career. And I think with the right guidance and information and just the transparency and honesty that I can provide you about this industry that will make things a little bit less challenging for you.
[00:26:00] And I think you'll just kind of understand more of what you can expect when you decide to work in this industry, but that is. All this stuff we'll be covering on future podcasts, and since I haven't thought of anything cool to say to sign off, I guess I will just say I'll talk to you next week. Have a good one.
