We were lucky to catch up with Brittany Howard recently and have shared our conversation below.
Brittany, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you wish you had started sooner?
I 100% wish I would have pursued my artistry a lot earlier in my career. I honestly feel that my own self doubt or feeling misunderstood held me back. I was my own worse critique. Thankfully, it’s never too late to go after what you love. I wholeheartedly believe that.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am a freelance makeup artist based in Cincinnati, OH. I’ve always had a passion for art, science and investigations. I never thought I’d find myself becoming a makeup artist but makeup is all of the things that I love. I’ve done everything from magazines, runways, weddings, photoshoots, music videos, you name it. I am so excited about direction my artistry is taking me and proud of the artist I have become today.
I honestly would have never thought in a million years that becoming a makeup artist would be that career for me. When I discovered makeup I liked how much it made me investigate. I loved doing makeup on myself but doing it on others is where the real challenge lies. I made so many mistakes and I’m grateful it never discouraged me.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
There’s a moment in my artistry career that I will forever hold near to me. I was traveling to New York City for work. The photoshoot I was scheduled to do was huge for me because it’s the first time I had the opportunity to work with non-binary models. I arrived the night before the photoshoot and was going over the looks I was to create on the models with the wardrobe stylist. As I am going over the looks, I realized I forgot all my brushes in Cincinnati. Now this is the kicker, it was Covid and NYC shut everything down early to clean and sanitize. It’s 9pm and I am breaking down. I panic, call my mom she reassured me it’ll be okay. My friend, the wardrobe stylist, it’s reassuring me that it’ll be okay. We run out and find the drugstores were closed. We walk back to go back to his residency and a woman is walking out of Burlington Coat Factory. We dart in, I find two brush sets and made them work. The next day was the photoshoot and we knocked it out the park. I was so proud of the work we created and the photoshoot end up becoming the front cover of BeyondAll magazine. As long as you have a good circle around you, keep faith, nothing can stop you.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
Honestly, sharing our work is so important. There are some people who have never sat in my seat but had tagged me and shared my post and it means so much. There are people who cheer you on and see that hard work that you do who want to see you win. Simply subscribing, sharing and tagging us artist help tremendously. There are so many different artist and creatives now that you can easily get over looked but when you friends, colleagues and followers share and tag your work it’s always an amazing feeling. Also, allow the artist to express their creativity. Sometimes it’s gets boring creating the same looks over and over again. Some artist are hesitant to step out the box because their they don’t believe their followers will engage or like the direction that artist is taking. Allowing the artist to be creative is important so we don’t feel burnt out.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.facesbybrittanymua.as.me
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/facesbybrittany
- Facebook: facesbybrittany
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@facesbybrittany