Makeup Vamp won our Best Makeup Artist of 2016 award and we talked with her about the past, 2016, and the future.
How do you see the development of your career from its start through now?
Deanna Roberts : My career has been an amazing adventure! I was that kid who put makeup on anyone and everything from the time I could walk. I lived for Halloween. In high school, I was on the drama club theater team doing makeup for our musicals and plays. A few years later, I found myself in beauty school, pursuing a cosmetology license, while delving into prom and event makeup. I ended up being a stay at home mom for the better part of thirteen years, and running a haunted house in my back yard, doing makeup on all the kids that acted for us. I was also deeply involved in the haunted attraction industry, where I met Nez Wilburn of Darkspectre Custom Couture, and model Jackie Appel. Both have become my lifelong best friends, and part of my tribe. My life took many twists and turns, and I realized I wanted to further my career. So, I went back to school. First makeup school, in Chicago, where I learned the huge difference between event makeup and photography and film makeup. And then back to beauty school, where I pursued my licensing in esthetics. It was while starting my life and career all over again that I met Laura Dark, and became part of Team Dark. I had no idea, back then, that I would end up where I am now.
What do you think was your greatest achievement of 2016?
Finding a successful balance between my freelance career, my salon career, and my private life.
What was the greatest obstacle of 2016?
Finding a balance between my freelance career, my salon career, and my private life. That, and as always, the physical distance between my home in the Chicagoland area and Team Dark in Ohio.
To what do you feel you owe your success?
Hard work, determination, finding a learning experience in my failures, a great support team of friends and family, and working with amazing creatives like Nez, Jackie, Tidy Photography, and Laura Dark, who see my visions, and help cultivate them, working very symbiotically like a hive mind. It’s amazing when you work with people who embrace your weirdness, and love the dark just as much, seeing the beauty in what others would find ugly or shocking.
What’s one big goal you still hope to achieve?
To be a featured artist on a cover of a nationally published magazine.
What are your plans for 2017?
I’m taking more personal time for my other hobbies, like cosplay and historic reenactments, spending more time with my daughter who has grown up under my nose while being my biggest cheerleader in my career. I’m being much pickier about projects that I work on, outside of the salon. I feel I’ve earned the right to slow down a bit.
Deanna Roberts is definitely deserving of his award! She demonstrated her superior skills even as far back as a new student at Make up First ® School of Makeup Artistry in Chicago. http://www.makeupfirst.com