We were lucky to catch up with Dimanek Glass recently and have shared our conversation below.

Dimanek, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you manage your own social media?

I manage my own social media! I do this because I like to have a close relationship with my followers and want the relationship to feel authentic and true to myself. No one can be me, better than I can and I feel like if I want my passion to be delivered clearly to my audience, the best way is to do it myself.

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?

Growing up I did not have a lot of friends, if any. I would spend a lot of my time sitting alone at recess drawing or doing something art related. As I got older, I realized that everything I could draw on paper — I could do on my face. Although I did not initially have the interest in Beauty Make-Up, and my passion was mostly in SFX Make-Up — after working off the books in Haunted Houses having to mix both styles, I fell in love with both. I am now a full time Special FX Artist & Make-Up Artist, and I like to cosplay! My clients / freelance work mostly consists of Film and TV providing both regular film make-up AND Special FX Make-Up! It’s not often you come across a Make-Up artist who is able to be both, and I think that’s what is super cool about me! I love to cosplay too, so I also make a lot of props and stuff! Most of the time there are separate people, and departments for each step, but I can kind of do it all! Imagine having someone that can sculpt a stab would silicone prosthetic, paint it, apply it, make a blood gag for it, apply it to the client, fabricate the knife used to make the injury, and do the make-up for the client as well? That’s me! I’m super passionate about SFX & Make-Up and I just want to be an inspiration to people that look like me! As a black woman it’s easy to be overlooked, and not uncommon to have to work 5 times harder to get the same opportunities as others, and I’m here to show people that look like me that it’s possible!

Have you ever had to pivot?

As a make-up artist, obviously I love make-up and being creative! All I knew is I wanted to have a job in the Make-Up industry, and I worked super hard to get there. I was working as a manager in a global Retail Beauty Store. At the beginning I loved it, it was a dream, me — a Make-Up Artist, working in a make-up store, discounts on make-up, able to do make-up, talk about make-up, eat, sleep, and breathe make-up — I felt so accomplished. That was extremely short lived, it got old VERY quickly, and I realized although it was a job IN the make-up world, I wasn’t exactly doing artist things, and I felt extremely unfulfilled. I very quickly realized although it’s make-up, it’s not what I wanted to do IN make-up. I contemplated quitting for a very long time, what drove me to do so ultimately was a heated encounter with a racist coworker. The day I quit I decided I was going to pursue being an ACTUAL make-up artist full time, not just freelancing on the side. That worked out for a little bit, but then I moved, and life hit me HARD. I decided to get another job, still in beauty. I had a position of a content creator for a Small Luxury Make-Up company where I was their in-house content creator, make-up artist and was handling influencer relations. Although I was defeated, I convinced myself that I was not a failure, and it WAS a step up from working in the retail store as I was actually getting to do make-up and learning the ins and outs of the beauty industry and product development, I still had this feeling of being unfulfilled looming over me. I was doing make-up — yes, but this company focused on very clean and minimal beauty, I could do it, but again I did not feel fulfilled doing so. After that feeling followed me from Retail to that position, it solidified within me that I did not want to work for a company that involved the actual selling of make-up, unless it was my own – I wanted to focus on the actual CREATION of art and things like that. Eventually I ended up leaving that job and have been freelancing ever since and making it work because I refuse to go back! Now I am working in Film & TV and working with several music clients and I am finally feeling fulfilled in doing what I love! Being able to have fun and be creative and see my work be preserved FOREVER on screen has me feeling alive, this is the feeling that I was chasing for so long!

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

For me, the most rewarding part of this is the process. From the moment you close your eyes and see something in your mind, for me it starts there. I love being able to pull directly what is in my mind out and create it in real life for everyone to see. The most rewarding part of the process is the end result where you can show your result to anyone that may have been confused during the creative process and say “See, this is what I was talking about” and watch them understand everything. That feels so. good.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.dimanek.com / www.beatbydime.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/BeatByDime
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dimanekw/
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/DimeHatesYou
• Other: TikTok: @DimeHatesYou