"Another obstacle honestly, was also being able to come out as a lesbian to my family. That was a very big obstacle because, again, it kind of just made me feel like I was alone and that I didn't have that support system that I thought I needed.”
With little to no support from her family, it was her resilience, her determination, her positive mindset, and her hard work that gave her that extra push that she needed to become the leader that she is today.
“My name is Tiffany Lucille, also known as ‘Tiffany The Artist'. I am 31 years old and I just moved to New York from the south side of Chicago, Illinois. I'm currently in New York City and I'm the Artist Educator for Stila Cosmetics.
I also work freelance under ‘Tiffany the Artist’ as well.”
“I would have to say that my most valued achievement would definitely be working within the LGBT community and being able to represent my community. I've been able to do a lot of Pride campaigns here in New York City.”
“I was able to do hair and makeup for one of Nike’s biggest Pride campaigns which was with Leiomy Maldonado, The ‘Wonder Woman’ of Vogue. Also, being one of the faces for Coach, for Pride, and doing makeup for their campaign and working with Kimpton Hotels, along with FX’s, Pose, with their Pride campaign as well."
"So just being able to be one of the faces for the LGBT community, as far as makeup-artists goes, especially in New York. That would be one of my biggest accomplishments...and doing all of this in less than 2 or 3 years or so has been a blessing.”
Rewind
“The biggest obstacles that I’ve had to go through while trying to pursue my career was:
1. When I decided to leave Ohio State as a senior. I was a dance major with the Ohio State University, but I always knew that I wanted to do hair and makeup. I always wanted to do something within fashion and beauty, and I had to take that leap of faith.”
"Even though my parents weren't the most in agreeance with that decision, the backlash of leaving school and pursuing my dream was one of those obstacles because sometimes you feel like you need the support of your family. But sometimes if you're able to really support yourself, mentally and spiritually, you'd be surprised how much more stronger that is than the support of others. Honestly just trusting yourself.”
2. “Another obstacle honestly, was also being able to come out as a lesbian to my family. That was a very big obstacle because, again, it kind of just made me feel like I was alone and that I didn't have that support system that I thought I needed. But honestly, sometimes you cry and you pray and you do all kinds of things trying to figure out what your purpose in life is and sometimes people really don't realize that all those tears and all that work that we put into what we do eventually pays off.”
"One thing that I didn't realize at a younger age was that everything that we do on our path in life all leads up to that one moment, which is amazing, because you don't really see that in the process. I feel like everything I've ever done from cosmetology school, teaching, doing fashion shows at Ohio State, and doing ballroom…. it all led up to what I do right now with my career and it led me to becoming a really good leader, a great educator, and also a growing artist.”
Fast Forward - Get Inspired
“I would have to say my advice for people in this industry is to don't always be so quick to charge. Always be quick to learn. if you're not able to learn in this industry and learn application or just different ways of handling business or doing different things, you'll never be as successful as you want to be."
"Also, I always tell people to always offer yourself as a buffet and never as a 'Happy Meal', and what I mean by that is that usually when we go to McDonald's and we get a Happy Meal, either the fries are cold or the burger’s not that good, or the drink got too much ice. There's always not a satisfying element to it.
"But when you go to a buffet, it’s a different story because you're able to offer the customer so much more of an experience, but not only that, their able to feel more confident in what they're investing in. So I would say keep learning, keep growing, do everything that you can. Get your feet wet in everything, because it's better to be a more marketable artist than to be just a ‘she only does ‘certain beats’ artist’. So do everything.”
“I feel like we all go through our obstacles, but sometimes we just have to be a little bit more stronger than our emotions and even our own mind. It's all about our thought process. One thing I’ve really gained in my 31 years of living, not that that's much (laughing), but one thing that I've noticed was that it's all about the right timing."
"Even if you’re not getting paid today, but you’re still doing work... at the end of the day, everything that you do to make yourself better as an artist or as a business person, counts. Even if you’re not getting paid for it. I would love people to understand that THAT’s what it’s all about.”
“Everyday is a work in progress. Some weeks are great and some months are bad. But It’s all about pushing yourself and being able to be confident in yourself and being like you know what, ‘This month wasn’t that good but guess what? Next month is going to be an even better month’."
"You may be going through trials and tribulations, financial shit, all kinds of stuff, but next year, it’s going to be different because you put in so much work this year that you stressed yourself to the maximum point that God is only going to bless you because you put in the work and like I said, whether it’s paid work or whatever. Work is work and commitment is everything, and those are really what's going to push you and make things happen for you.”
“I always also tell people to make connections. Connections don’t make themselves. You have to make those connections. Reach out. Even if today, they don't respond back, then next year just try again. It's always that aspect of the future and even though sometimes you don't want to get too stuck in the future because we never know what's going to happen, you have to keep looking at the better days.”
“Speaking into existence those type of moments really do help. I always tell people to write down your plans. Write down your goals... every month. Usually what I do is, after I get my calendar and I get my work schedule, usually I'll make a goal list saying something like ‘I want to do at least 5 photo-shoots this month’."
"Always constantly be busy and produce great work with amazing people and don't ever feel scared to say ‘no’. If you feel like that's a project that's not going to be beneficial to you artistically, for your portfolio, or just career-wise in general, you can always say ‘no’.”
“Another thing I always say too is that in that aspect of charging, you cannot charge if you don't have any visuals. So let's say if you’re a makeup artist and you have a nasty beat but you're trying to do Alexander McQueen, and Alexander McQueen is all natural, with very little concealer and very little lip balm, if you're not able to visually show a client that you're able to do that, then they're going to probably neglect you. They're always going to ignore you, because when you're dealing with a lot of these companies, you're dealing with a lot of corporate people and you have to be very straight forward."
"So if you want to work for GAP, produce work for GAP. If you want to work for Alexander McQueen, start producing work that IS Alexander McQueen. You CANNOT just send, again, a McDonalds picture to a fucking Chanel. That's not going to work out. You have to be able to produce the kind of work that you want to do and that you can see yourself doing.”
“Like I said, it’s all about networking and getting to know people and really just taking that step and feeling that sense of accomplishment of you know, ‘I hit up like 5 people today, and even though only a few people hit me up, at least I booked something for this month or next month”.
“I always encourage makeup artists to become educators, because as an educator you're able to really WANT to teach your client as many tricks as possible so that they can become a lot more confident in the investment that they're making into their artist.
1) They’re (your clients) are going to want to learn a lot and
2) you know that they're in the hands of a professional. So if you're able to do THAT and give them the best of both worlds, then you will always have loyal and amazing clients."
"Go above and beyond. If you’re on a shoot then help out. Don't just stand there on your phone and not do shit. That's not going to help out. That’s just going to show that you're a lazy makeup artist. Don’t wait for the directors or photographers to tell you when to do your job. You should already be there before they even have to fix their mouth to say that something needs to be fixed. So take what you do serious because if you don't take it serious then nobody's going to take you serious as an artist or as a professional as well.”