We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lorann Schindler a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Lorann, thanks for joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

How did I learn to do what I do? Well, I guess in some way it was always innately in me. I am a hair and makeup artist as well as a photographer. They were both things I just kind of started doing as a young child. From there I grew up to seek out formal education on both fronts. I studied photography in college and attended The Makeup Training Academy to further learn makeup! I don’t think I would have done anything to speed up my learning process because I believe you never stop learning. I continue to seek out education everywhere and anywhere I can. Trends and technology are ever changing, so keeping up with knowledge in your field is important. In this day and age there are so many resources readily available for you everywhere you turn that it makes it easy to find new ways to learn.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers?

I am creative based out of the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas, but travel further for work often. I work in all mediums of art with makeup and photography being my focus. I studied photography and the basics of art and design principles at the University of North Texas before transferring to Tarleton State University. It was there that I obtained a Bachelors of Fine Arts concentrated on 2d media such as painting, as well as a minor in English. Upon my college graduation, I attended the Terri Tomlinson Makeup Training Academy to study the art of makeup. My story started from birth. Art, or being a creative, was just something that was always inherently rooted in me. My lineage is full of artisans, makers, painters, etc. I was always a little weird, always had to be doing or making something, getting my hands into absolutely anything I could to make something. I did everything I could as a child: painting, sewing, pottery, spin art, baking, sneaking into my grandma’s makeup.
I have spent a majority of her life working with makeup. Crediting Barbie as my first makeup inspiration, I would get my hands into anything I could find growing up to try to recreate Barbie’s many looks. At the age of eleven I began to work with my local high school’s theatre department doing hair and makeup. By the time I was fourteen I had booked my first clients for homecoming and prom, and now twenty years later I have not stopped.
My love of photography also started at some point in my childhood. It was with those same Barbie’s that I should style their hair, pose and line them up for photoshoots. I would use up rolls of my grandma’s film having photoshoots for my Barbies. When I was in high school I joined the yearbook staff and was instantly connected to the camera. As yearbook editor my senior year of high school I decided to set off on a path of obtaining an art degree.
My makeup work varies. I work as a freelance makeup artist doing everything from on set production work to editorial photoshoots to runway shows, and more. With my degree in art I feel it gives me a leg up if you will. I am highly trained in art and design principles, color theory, color mixing, etc. I can take art direction easily because I can easily see the full picture of a project. As a photographer I love working with people; helping them to tell a story. I enjoy artistic portraiture, fashion photography, photojournalistic type work/content creation, lifestyle portraiture, and product photography. I am sort of a one stop shop, as I will often do someone’s hair and makeup then photograph them. I think that is something that truly sets me apart. Neither one is just a hobby for me. You are getting her full attention and skill from both aspects.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

For me the most rewarding aspect of being an artist is all of it. There is not just one thing that stands out to me. It is the entire creative process and journey. Everything that goes into every aspect of what it takes to make anything. When it comes to production work as a makeup artist, it is every moving part that goes into the production. It is waking up to three alarms at 4:00am to make my early call time, it is the relationships you form on set because for those three or however many days those people are your family, it is having the talent ready to go to set early, it’s the running to set with your set bag to make sure not hair is out of place when they step in front of the camera.
When it comes to artistic/editorial photoshoots it’s the small idea that lives in your head for months as it slowly becomes a Pintersest mood board. Then turns into a fully realized concept as you begin collecting props for the set, it is booking the perfect model to help you achieve your idea, it’s putting your makeup skills to test as you try a new product out for the creative shoot, it’s building you set and getting your lighting just right, it’s seeing the shots on your camera’s screen as you see your month’s long vision coming to life. It’s the sitting down and culling through every image and editing them, waiting for them to export to Dropbox, and then posting them online for others to see.
For me it is every single part that is the most rewarding. All the little details that go into a job that culminate in a final result of an image, commercial, etc. When you see the result and know the work that went into it. That is what is all about.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

In a broader sense I am not sure that there is any particular goal or mission driving my creative journey. Honestly, I think it is my answer to what is the most rewarding part. What is driving my creative journey is to just keep creating. To keep seeing those end results or a project. To hopefully make something that will help others feel seen or feel something. To feed the internal need to just make art. In another sense though one of my missions as a creative is to help others on their creative journey. I LOVE working with other artists and creatives, giving them space to help them achieve their creative visions. Or lending in any way that I can the knowledge I have gathered over the past twenty years. I feel sometimes in the creative field there is too much gatekeeping. There is room here for everyone and there is always a place at my table for others!

Contact Info:

• Website: lorannschindler.com
• Instagram: @L_schin
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lorannschin/

Image Credits
Lorann Schindler, Reese Williams, Black Pat, Brittany Miller