To be honest I don’t feel much like writing about this. It was an odd week. I worked from the day I arrived for 4 days straight with back to back shows from the morning to the night. From a perspective of earning money, and getting more great shows under my belt, this season was superb. From an emotional perspective I was blind sided and speared by one of my idols in makeup at the beginning of the week in such a way that the scar of shock and self-doubt, I then carried with me through every show afterwards.

At the beginning of the week I was feeling great. I’d been doing well on all my shows since NY duplicating makeup for artists I’d never worked for. The Milan incident went down like this…In the morning I worked on my first MAC sponsored show that I was actually a part of their team. The requirement was to be wearing all black. So I had put on a pencil skirt, a very cool sleeveless top, a large, high-waisted belt, my favorite black necklace (that I always get complimented on) and a pair of ballet flats. I was feeling and looking great! From there I hurried out the building into the fashion crowd madness, did a 5 minute catch up with a hair stylist friend who I hadn’t seen in a while, snagged a taxi and whisked over to the other side of town.

This show felt particularly important because it was for one of the most famous Italian brands and famous makeup artists in the world. I had already done this same show on the same team 2 seasons before. Sadly foreshadowing the last experience wasn’t particularly smooth, but I had another year under my belt and one of my good makeup buddies was on the scene and 2^nd in command. Feeling excited and nervous, I set up my table and got ready to watch the demonstration by the main assistant, since the head artist was on her way from another show. Standing with all the other artists, a solid team of regulars, I felt a bit insecure but still relatively confident, as I’d already done a good job before with this team on another show a couple seasons back.

From behind me, entered the lead artist. She quickly surveyed the situation and I found her standing right in front of me. With incredibly terse words and an energy that was almost angry, she barked questions at me, starting with, “Who are you?” then rapidly fired, “are you here to be on my team, for makeup?”. Before I could get more than 2 words out, she asked, “where are you from?”, with no time to respond because I didn’t really understand how she meant the question, she snapped, “what agency?!” Then I replied slightly flustered that I was free lance. She swiftly excommunicated me from the entire show with the biting force an impatient teacher takes with a child being punished, by saying, “Well you’re not a makeup artist. You are not to watch the demo. Go stand over there.“

It was humiliating. I was too shocked to get angry right away. I had been shot down with no warning.

I had been banished to the opposite end of the room, where I would stay doing virtually nothing for the next four and a half hours before show time, when I was lucky enough to cover bruises and put cream on the models bodies. In front of makeup and hair colleagues and models who I knew from other shows, I had been put in a very obvious corner…that’s what it felt like. A couple of times during the madness, my friend tried to console me and mouthed “I love you”. Later he explained that he was sorry he hadn’t had a chance to warn me about the key artist’s mood that day, and after a little bit of thought added that it didn’t help that I was pretty and dressed nicely. He said, “look around, do you see one even remotely pretty girl here?” No, I didn’t. Not even close. A couple of times I went into my bag like an ostrich buries its head in the sand, and while I was crouched down under the table, I let a few tears fall. It was the only time I would cry that week until the very end.

It has been a very long time since I’ve cried because of feeling humiliated at work. Maybe 9 years, so this drove straight into the core of me because it caught me off guard and attacked an extremely tender, vulnerable, overly delicate area…my worth as a makeup artist.

So no, it wasn’t personal. No it wasn’t my fault. But that’s the kind of blow that isn’t so easy to overcome with logic, or consolation. More so, I had somehow attracted that experience. So what was it there to teach me?

After that moment, absolutely every show was colored with my own self-doubt and in true form I made mistakes all along the way and as I attempted to shine through, I was dimmed by a fog having not totally released the pain of what had happened. Then even the small criticisms were magnified three times. Criticism and correction is totally normal on shows, but most artists do it respectfully or very matter-of-factly, but I’ve yet to meet one that has publicly humiliated me especially for nothing, until now.

Add to all of this that I was getting up at 6am everyday, getting home around 9:30pm and was destroyed after dinner just plunking into bed. The stress of the shows, of performing well, trying to get cold artists to open up and make conversation in a friendly way. There’s a lot of down time at shows, and it’s nice to converse, but there were times when I just sat alone in silence, not in the mood to talk. The team I usually assisted with was not at the shows in Milan because the main artist was having a baby any day, so I was on a team who I’d randomly assisted with over the last 2 years. They were never very warm, but one or two shows a season didn’t seem to make an impression. Now my entire week was spent with these people, who mostly kept to themselves, spoke their own language amongst each other and were less than helpful. It was a fighting match to get a model to work on. They all used a particular line of products the lead artist is sponsored by and it wasn’t until several mis-haps with the foundation I was using from my kit, that I realized I just needed to use theirs. Of course I asked politely from the one or two nicer artists, not in the tight circle of the inner team, to let me share. The lead artist just liked the way his foundation looked best, and even though he was fine with me using MAC or Estee Lauder, he never liked how it looked once it was on. By the time I finally got the base down, I was feeling horrendously insecure and out of place. When it came to makeup I did alright, but he corrected everyone a lot. The artists doing that is normal. However I was taking everything really hard, so when he corrected my work, it felt as if I was the only one. Again, my logical consolation wasn’t helping me see clearly or feel better.

I hesitate writing this publicly because it’s so open and personal. I don’t think many people read this blog anymore, but for the ones that do, I am not afraid to share this with you, because you’ve been following me for a while. I feel like if you cared enough to keep up, then there is no judgment for my hard moments on this path in life. We all have them…we are human…I am amazingly so sometimes.

5 days after having arrived in Milan, I hadn’t really seen much of it outside of backstages. Then I started calling friends, having real lunches, dinners, gelato and all in weather that was so warm and summer like, I felt as if I was being kissed on the forehead with delights.

Randomly in New York while shooting during fashion week with a crew from Hong Kong and a rather well known Chinese model. She was tremendously tall and her arms seemed to be even half the size of mine! Just to knock out the anorexia idea, she ate more than I did that day, including plenty of model-prohibited carbs. (I’m excited to see the photos!) While I was sitting waiting between shots on the benches in front of the Standard hotel, a videographer was sitting near me and must have overheard me speaking Italian on my cell earlier, so he struck up a conversation. Soon he was joined by a 40-something blond woman who appeared to be a journalist. After some chit chatting I asked what exactly they were doing for fashion week in NY and both seemed very surprised that I’d lived in Italy but didn’t already know who she was. The videographer asked if I ever watched TV. Well…not really, it was usually incomprehensible, strange and only entertaining from a humorous prospective for me. Apparently she is quite famous, according to every single Italian friend I have. So her giving me her private cell number and telling me to call her when I was in Italy was something of a charm whose value I didn‘t comprehend. I did text several times with her during the week while in Milan, but the craziness of all the events made it so that we never did cross paths. By the time she was interviewing at a show I was doing makeup for, I was already in a van to the next show. Maybe next time I’m in Italy we’ll have coffee. If I’m being honest, I didn’t push because, I don’t really know why we would meet up. I’m not sure what the point would be beyond saying we had coffee together.

Going to Paris was a last minute decision every step of the way. First I wasn’t even considering the trip because it has always been out of reach due to the work visa situation. Then at a show in NY an artist told me of a very simple, free way to get documents to go. Paris became an exciting possibility and I had already been put on hold for 3 shows there! I did what she told me, and had the required forms being sent, and was getting more and more excited. I hoped to get the documents before I left NY, but since it was on such a tight timeline, I asked my roommate to fedex them to me in the case that they arrived after. Each day I was hoping to have news that would tell me for sure if I could move forward with Paris plans or not. Every day I hoped to hear from Cynthia that the documents arrived. I had been in suspension buying my plane ticket which was rising in price daily. The accommodations I thought I could have for free didn’t work out either. And as I waited, three shows turned into just one. I couldn’t push anyone for more shows on other teams because I still didn’t have documents. I came to the realization that Paris wasn’t going to happen. But I didn’t feel complete. Not yet ready to go to NY, but not wanting to stay in Milan.

Then I received an email, from another artist who said she had called the same government agency as I did and already had received her documents, plus extras and offered me her surplus forms! The ball was back in motion and at that point I would have to leave the next day to Paris to make it work,. I decided an 8 hour train would be the most cost effective option. Before finalizing whether or not to go, I used the power of my blackberry, seeing as I was outside of the house shopping for the first time, to gather steam for work options. I started shooting emails to everyone asking for work. I came back with 2 more shows I could work on. 3 would be enough to make it worth my while and not go in the hole on money. But one show was the next day at 1pm, an impossibility. Then a different booker told me the agency would not accept the documents I had. So then I was down to one show. With that, I sent thank you and a decline email to the only show I could actually have done and finally I knew I was headed back to NY.

During my stay in Milan, I was at my friend Karel’s house. He was so good to me and I had an amazing stay. My room was their huge living room complete with a tropical fish tank and a very spunky white cat who positioned himself as often as possible on my black clothes. Karel even accompanied me all the way to the airport this morning, insisting on carrying my bags and paying for our coffee. I feel so grateful to have such a stupendous friend. Also he is a unbelievably talented photographer. On Saturday, my day off from the shows, I spent it with him parked in an agency doing the fastest makeup and hair for portraits of models as they came through. We had 10 to 30 minutes total for each model, since they were all normally running to the next show, fitting, etc. So in 5 minutes I spruced them up and in 5 more Karel took black and white headshots for the agency’s new comp cards. He spent the entire week there already shooting Natasha Poly, Mariacarla, Tao, etc. This agency had the most amount of models of any other agency walking in the most shows during fashion week. They’d blown a record. So it was the top girls coming through and had actually come up with the idea to have Karel do this project as a first time ever thing. My day was a bit slow at times, but I will soon have portraits of some GREAT girls in my book…and I mean GREAT!

The weather was just stunning in Milan. I had over packed and mostly for Fall temperatures, so it was a bit tough coming up with nice clothing combinations even with all of my over packing. One day I went to the far north part of Milan to get money for a job I did in February and had to walk for several blocks finding myself sweating in my ¾ sleeve top and jeans. It’s amazing how late one gets paid for work in Italy and then all the calls and going to the office just to get the money makes it like double the work for the same amount of pay.

I wanted to be paid from another job in February and get the images, but the photographer was out of Milan for an undetermined amount of time. Hmm. Then I also found out that an editorial I did last year was published in a very prestigious magazine called Lula. I had no idea so I only have the photos printed and not the tears…I was a bit bummed about that and I guess I’ll see if I can recover the magazine at some point since I didn’t have time while there.

I managed to get all my new work printed at my favorite laboratory in Milan and got lots of suggestions from Karel on which would be the best choices. I’m SO excited for the new additions to my book.

I really want to get back to NY and start shooting as much as possible now.

As soon as I was free to roam Milan, I met up with every friend available and ate as much good Italian food as I could. The nights were warm and I made up for a very lacking summer in NY in just a few nights of dining al fresco and eating gelato while walking and talking on the chic crowded streets of Brera. I hugged, laughed, shared stories of pain and joy, and looked into the eyes of friends I love and miss. It all felt so familiar, but as foreign as it always had. Coming back to Milan had me reflecting quite a bit on my 2 years there. What had happened, how I had felt, what I saw, learned and experienced and who I was during the process of learning to be in another culture and express myself in another language. It was a fascinating look back. Even meeting with ex-lovers who I had felt most at home with, I realized I never felt comfortable there. I kept trying to fit into a place that could never be my true home. I wouldn’t give those 2 years up for anything else though. I am blessed to have done what I did and actually found myself wondering how things would be if I hadn’t left, but then I didn’t let myself slip to far into idyllic fantasies not based on a reality that propelled me to leave.

I learned something incredibly important on this trip that hit me while I was in the metro. It was that I decide my beauty, worth, and interest in this life. And how I feel about my work and who I show up as, determines how people will see me as well. Moreover giving the power to anyone to determine my worth be it positively or negatively is not a place I wish to be in. None of this are new concepts or anything I didn’t know before, but it all hit me in a new, more powerful way. Sigh…[smile].

Pictures from fashion week are here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=120395&id=541155828&l=42b1da9a66

My shoot on Monday was really a shift from the one on Saturday. Everyone had come together to creatively participate in it. Our crew was filled with talented eager folks, all successful in their own rite though new to the NY fashion shooting scene. The photographer Andres is a warm, good-hearted Columbian who I found through some internet searching when I first arrived in NY. When I made contact with him, I came to find out the he lived and shot mostly in Miami but his producer made sure we stayed in touch. So when he came to NY she gave me his details, we had a coffee and the rest is an unfolding story. He wanted to shoot something very unique and had found an art director of sorts who has this amazing blog tracking some really avant garde stories. The stylist used to design for Badgley Mischka haute couture. The hairstylist is successful in one of NY’s trendy salons and is just starting her freelance career. Then there was me. J

It was just wonderful to be surrounded by excited and talented folks. The shoot wasn’t without its glitches, but unlike on Saturday, we had a supportive team jumping through the obstacles together. The first hurdle was that one model apparently never got the email from her booker telling her about the shoot and ended up 3 hours late. Our call time was at 7am at the stylists house. Andres was supposed to take the models from his place and bring them together, but since the second model hadn’t arrived on time and the agency wasn’t open to find out any information, he sent the first model alone. His beautiful Columbian friend brought our Ukrainian model over and we started on her almost an hour late. By the time the agency opened and we got the other model’s booker on the phone, over 2 hours had passed, and our day was becoming very long. The rented uhaul van only had two seats, so the rest of us had to jam into a taxi. However there was yet another problem. It turned out the only person who knew exactly where we were going was the art director who was already in Brooklyn waiting for us. After figuring that out, it went pretty smoothly.

We didn’t make it out to set until 1pm and our first show wasn’t until after 1:30pm. Over 6 hours after our call time! Spirits still high and anxious to shoot we finally began. The makeup artists and hair stylists are the ones who get the gossip, the confessions, the attitude, and the sweetness from models. That said I was already getting attitude from the Ukrainian model but that’s a norm from the Eastern European girls and the American was being a sweety. Also a norm. The American wasn’t feeling good from the car ride because she was still recovering from a cold. Us makeup artists can show compassion, but it’s better not to baby the models too much, so I took her on a walk for fresh air and made her stand in the shade. Then she began to divulge much more interesting tales. Apparently she had a rare disease for 6 years that had also caused her to live some years in wheel chair, and then later have her neck fused. She told me the Discovery channel did a documentary on her because of what she’d been though. And there she was at our shoot, walking just fine but without a lot of neck rotation. The other thing us makeup artists shouldn’t do is go around telling everyone on set. So I kept this to myself but there were moments in shooting where she began to sweat profusely from the heat and physical discomfort. Some of the positions we had them in were very challenging and since I was the only one who knew about her physical limitations, I just kept checking in on her and barking at everyone to move fast, mostly blaming sweating as a problem. In fact the one time I saw her really start to look bad I said, “Let’s go! She’s dying over here!” and she quickly responded that she was fine, but to shoot. She didn’t want to seem vulnerable at all. After that shot I told the photographer about her neck and her cold so that he would understand better. Most of the people I work with tend to be compassionate, but there are lines while working.

A good example is when I was on another shoot some weeks ago and we had red headed twins from Eastern Europe. They were a nightmare. One had shown up with a really bad headache and since we wanted her to be in good form for the shoot, we began to dote on her…unfortunately it back fired and these girls went from sweet 17 year olds to nasty and rude in no time. I have never encountered such rudeness from girls on set - and I’ve had a lot of it come my way - but they won the prize. I had to walk out of the room towards the end of the day during shooting so as not to completely lose my temper and allow the photographer her space to shoot.

Anyway, back to the other shoot. We were getting some great shots even though there were a couple of stylistic clashes going on between art direction and wardrobe from time to time. We were fighting the clock and ended up having to cut out 2 wardrobe changes because of it. At the end of shooting we all were hot, sweaty and happy piling into the back of the van with no seats we illegally headed back to Manhattan.

A couple of nights later I was in the process of starting dinner for me and my roommate, when it was decided that the photographer and stylist would come over and we‘d edit down the photos. Originally it was a thank you for a pair of shoes she bought and then gave me because they hurt her feet and not mine. With the others invited it turned into this really excellent night of eating, talking, drinking and then editing. I roasted a delicious chicken in the oven, drenched in lemon, garlic, fresh rosemary, salt, pepper, butter and a little orange; aalso baking in the pan were some carrots and potatoes which had a wonderfully succulent flavor. I paired that with jasmine rice with sautéed tomatoes and yellow peppers mixed in. Followed by a dessert of vanilla bean ice cream topped by bananas sautéed in butter and brown sugar. It was so delectable and the perfect amount of food for 4 people. In the back red, velvet draped room of my house, we dined surrounded by candles, sitting on floor cushions with a long wood and marble bench as our table. It was such a perfect night.

I can’t wait to post the photos!