Blogpost 2
When I was first introduced to the better lives themes I found it hard to identify what aspects of my course (hair and makeup for fashion) related to them, particularly social responsibility. Having followed the lectures and worked through my project more I was able to pick apart the key themes and relate them to my current work. I chose portrait photography as my better lives project and the key themes were very present throughout the lectures and scheme of work we were given. When I was shooting I had to think about who and what I was shooting and how I was presenting it. It became apparent to me that through all of my work and projects (across both hair and makeup, and photography) that I must take into consideration how my work is representing different types of people and cultures and how I can be respectful throughout.
It has always been important to me that my work is diverse and inclusive and that I cause no offence with the pieces I create, so I was able to understand that this is part of my social responsibility as an artist. During my new unit for Hair and Makeup, I am thinking more about how I can research and explore different cultures and religions and allow my work to be creative but remain respectful and avoid culturally appropriating anybody’s beliefs or other parts of their identity. I want to continue to think about how I can be more diverse with my work and incorporate broader knowledge into my research and artistry.
Sustainability is something I have always been aware of but hardly ever related to how I work and what I can do to be more sustainable as a makeup and hair artist. Bigger brands are being more transparent about how sustainable they are, and more companies are trying to become cruelty-free and vegan because there is a higher demand for it in today’s climate. I want to be able to follow this idea and make my hair and makeup kit more sustainable and environmentally friendly. This includes using more recyclable and reusable materials and trying to go more toward cruelty-free and vegan brands for the makeup in particular. Waste is a big part of my course because a lot of my kit includes one-time use products and materials and I want to be able to find something more sustainable and better for the environment. I will continue to follow brands that are heading in this direction and take inspiration from them, I also want to focus more on smaller brands that work more fully for the environment and try to buy less into the faster-paced, bigger corporations so I can improve my carbon footprint and know that I am helping a smaller, potentially family-owned, business.
10th May 2020 @ 6:27 pm
As Better Lives is coming to an end its time to reflect on my developing creative attributes, by exploring and discussing my own posts and reviewing my peers work.
I have chosen to peer review Ellie Shemmells 2nd blog post ‘Reflections on how the Better Lives themes might change how you work in the future.’ I chose Ellie’s post as she is studying a similar course to me (Hair and Makeup Field). Ellie wrote about initially finding it quite difficult to identity the themes within her work, she explained how the better lives unit helped her to identify them easily which is a great positive outcome for her and the unit. I completely agree with Ellie as I struggled at the start of the unit too in identifying the themes within my work however through the lectures and sessions helped me hugely to identify and understand the themes of which have now become a second nature of mine to think about.
Ellie talks a lot about how she wants to make sure her work is diverse and inclusive as possible and making sure she is respectful about different cultures/religions through her work, which is excellent. I think that Ellie could have research more into ways she would avoid any negative effects through her work and examples of who/what. For example, reflecting on the cultural appropriation of corn rows within the black community, which have been seen worn by many white celebrities as a ‘fashion trend’ and expand more on this. Comparing my blog post I wish I had spoken more about respecting and researching different cultures/religions as I believe it is very important to have knowledge of in terms of my work.
She talks greatly about sustainability and wanting to make sure she tries to use products that are sustainably friendly in the future. She mentions ‘bigger brands’ and them wanting to be more transparent, I think to have fully reflected on the sustainable theme she could have mentioned some brands that are beginning to be transparent such as Illamasqua , Charlotte Tilbury, Glossier etc. and what they are doing to be sustainable. Comparing to my blog I talked a lot about consumable products that causes a lot of waste for the makeup industry and I think I could have touched more on makeup products as Ellie did.
Social responsibility is such an umbrella term for so many things. Ellis touched upon social responsibility in terms of diversity and taking responsibility as a makeup artist. To have fully reflected maybe looking at brands/companies that are socially responsible for products (cruelty-free, eco-friendly etc) and how she would have understood they are and why they are. For example, cruelty free companies such as NYX who display their cruelty free logo on products and have a whole webpage addressing, they are cruelty free.
Overall, I think Ellie produced a very good blog post with the fundamentals of the themes in her work however I do believe she could have even more reflect by researching and finding examples like I did in my blogs.
Link to Ellie’s Blog: https://1920betterlivessmc.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2020/04/28/blogpost-2/