To celebrate The Art of Makeup’s 10-year anniversary we decided to have a small meaningful gathering of those who are most important to us. We invited those who are close to us and those who have supported us along the way. We invited student graduates, and industry that has shown interest in hiring them. It’s not easy to own a business and keep it going strong for so many years, but the one thing we know that has kept us thriving is our supportive community.  We have had the privilege to train nearly 1,000 students from 35 different states around the country and 5 countries around the world. Program instructors and special guest speakers have included Emmy Award and Academy Award winning makeup artists, as well as Todd Debreceni, author of one of the most popular makeup books used in the industry, “Special Makeup Effects”. We have met so many creative, accomplished, and interesting people over the last decade!

We are so grateful to our talented instructors that are our backbone to providing an excellent education and who also often offer students their first job doing makeup outside of school.

We are also grateful to our local community that has shown us appreciation and opportunities to work with our students. Because of this so many of our students have had success in many different industries that require makeup application. One job leads to another, and one relationship leads to many, many more, so much in fact, that we currently have a graduate, Jan Rooney, nominated for a Prime Time Emmy for Stranger Things Season 4! We are over our heads with excitement and can’t wait for The Emmy’s to broadcast this September.  I just know she’ll win!

We had some very special and very accomplished guests attend our celebration and one of them brought another very special surprise guest who quicky became the life of the party! His name is Oscar and every one of our student graduate guests got to hold him and take pictures with him, including me!  Jeff Dawn won the Academy Award for Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991. And he was so generous to bring him to our party and let everyone hold him. Jeff had come only a few days before to educate our students on a life working in film and television. Jeff has department headed over 40 films and comes from a family of 3 generations of makeup artists. He is extremely knowledgeable. I received a phone call from Jeff within weeks of our humble existence in our basement letting me know he was there if I needed his support.

Another guest who has shown us support from our early beginnings is 2 time Emmy Award-winning makeup artist, Michael Key.  I have to admit the first time I met Michael I was star struck.  I have been attending his makeup show IMATS for many years, since the late 90’s when it began. IMATS inspired me and fueled my passion and love of the art and educated me further with the top stars of the industry. The creator of this monumental and gigantic event attended my first open house at our previous location in Vancouver, WA and attended our 10 year anniversary. Michael has taught classes for us and has generously donated pictures for our walls, makeup for our students, and many of his incredible collection of Make-Up Artist Magazines that he also created along with IMATS. To have his support all these years means so much to me.

Finally, I must point out the Oregon Governor’s Film Office who have also supported me from the beginning and helped me pass the bill to allow makeup artists to work legally in Oregon without needing an esthetic license. The Executive Director at the time, Vince Porter, along with IATSE 488 Business Director Charlie Carlsen, met me at the Capitol to speak at the hearings and convince the legislative decision makers why the change was important. This helped define makeup artistry apart from cosmetology, carving a new career in Oregon and allowed me to open my school in the state.  Jane Ridley, Marketing & Communications Manager of Oregon Film posts stories about our school on their blog, The Confluence, and showed her support as well by attending our party too. In fact, she shared this story! You can see it here. If you want to read more about our incredible journey to opening the school, you can see it here.

We look forward to what the future brings. We hope to bring new and exciting classes to the community, create more relationships, partnerships and work opportunities that help our students realize their dreams of becoming successful makeup artists! 

Please contact us if you have any ideas or opportunities for our school and students. We often implement ideas that come our way and turn them into classes. After all, it is all about community.