We were lucky to catch up with Viavia Veavea recently and have shared our conversation below.

Viavia, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

I’ve always been a creative person and me wanting to live my artistic fantasies was always a huge risk for me, growing up in a christian conservative home i was taught to be masculine, to be the man of the house and to never show any feminine after moving to america from American Samoa in 2014 i decided that i would live my life authentically myself so the second i arrived here i bloomed into everything i’ve always wanted to become, I started my makeup journey by stealing my sisters makeup and doing my makeup while everyone was away or asleep just to fulfill my artistic itch i’ve been wanting to scratch for so long. and honestly it paid off.

Viavia, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Growing up in a super conservative family while being Queer Was difficult ive always been a creative person, i always love decorating making things look pretty and was always told i had an eye for pretty things, so it was no surprise i was going to be a makeup artist, i first started using my sisters makeup without her knowing, I created a secret account on musical.ly now known as Tiktok and i would post my makeup looks online and gained a following, watching youtubers like Patrick Star, Nikkie Tutorials and Bretman Rock inspired me to be a Mua content creator.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Networking, and finding events happening in my city had opened alot of Opportunities for me, Ive always been social and love talking to people who share the same interests as me so it wasn’t hard to build a community in my city, with how much big the fashion industry is growing in slc its helped me put myself out there to book more gigs.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Growing up christian, I came to terms that i was a queer Person but i had a lot of misogynstic ideals imbedded in my identities and wearing makeup and being feminine was a huge NoNo in my book, so once I was able to meet new people who didn’t share those same beliefs i slowly matured and realized i can be anything, dress however and be my authentically myself with out shame.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://bio.site/via
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beatby.via?igsh=MW9xMTYybDJtZ2VtZg%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@homojuice?_t=8kptWMX7jKA&_r=1

Image Credits
taken by Via Veavea