Rising Stars: Meet Jessy Clark of Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessy Clark

Hi Jessy, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’ve always been obsessed with Makeup. In fact when I was in the fourth grade, my teacher called my parents and said Jessica seems more concerned with her Makeup than her schoolwork. She was not wrong, but for whatever reason I never imagined making a career of it, in my mind you either worked at Makeup counter at the mall or you worked on major Hollywood films and there was no in between. Regardless, it’s always been something I had a huge passion for. For a long time, I struggled to figure out what I wanted to do. I worked in professional childcare in my late teens. When I got sober 18 years ago after I had a few months of sobriety under my belt I thought that I wanted to go into the addiction field and help other people come out the other side the way I had and I did that for a few years. I was a career executive assistant for awhile, I even got my life coaching license and went to real estate school. One day when I was trying to get my life coaching practice off the ground, my best friend said to me “if I called you and said, I have a dual diagnosis client who is a major challenge but really needs help and is struggling, but it would be a pro bono client would you do it?” I thought about it a little bit and ultimately (though admittedly without much enthusiam) said that yes I would take the client. Then she said to me “if I called you and said I have a red carpet event tonight and it’s a huge deal and there’s gonna be a lot of photos taken and I need glam but I can’t pay you. Would you do it?” And without hesitation I very excitedly said, “OF COURSE I would!!!”. She looked at me and said “that’s what you need to be doing with your life”. It was so simple, but it blew my mind and she was absolutely right. So then I went to Makeup school because for whatever reason I seemed to be convinced that I was going to need a piece of paper at some point that said I had a formal education in Makeup (pro tip: you don’t, I’ve never once been asked for it). A few weeks into Makeup school, the teachers started having me teach classes some days! One of the things they told us in makeup school was that you were going to have to pick your specialty because nobody does everything, people either specialize in film/television or in editorial or in celebrity, etc., and that I was going to have to choose what my specialty would be. But I was not about to conform to one thing, I was sure I could do anything that was put in front of me. Every day in class we used to have to bring in a model to work on. One day my friend Vanessa volunteered to be my model and it turns out Vanessa was also the head of the beauty department for Insomniac Events (one of the top purveyors of massive festivals globally). Vanessa was so impressed with not just my skill set, but with particularly my speed, that she told me that she wanted me to come work with her at Insomniac. The next thing I know I’m traveling all over the world with the company doing some of the biggest events on earth and having the time of my life! The years I spent with them turned me into an unbelievably fast artist and I was able to parlay those skills into working fashion week events. My very first fashion week I ever worked, I was hired as part of a very large glam team and before the first day was over the lead artist plucked me from the general team and had me leading last looks backstage. Those events led to more relationships with models and photographers and designers who eventually led to work with editorial and celebrity among other things and today there is no medium I haven’t worked in. I’ve met and worked with some incredible people, worked with major celebrities, major productions, my work has been in films, television, music videos, covers of magazines, on runways, on red carpets, even at the forefront of some of the most famous stages in the world like Carnegie Hall, MainStage at Coachella, and The Kennedy Center.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I can say it definitely has not been a smooth road, but that’s the nature of the business. There is a lot of ebb and flow and if you want to get into Makeup, you need to understand that work is not always going to be consistent. There are a lot of incredibly high highs, and there are some very low lows. At one time there were two major production companies I was working for and I was so booked and busy that I didn’t have a need to hustle for any more clients or gigs and so for a long time I did not. That was a very bad idea that I had to learn from because (for reasons I won’t get into) one of those major production companies went on hiatus for nearly a year and the other one ended up going under and disbanding completely and then I was left with nothing on my client list and had to start all over. There have been times where I’ve been approached by film directors and gotten very far in the process and given them all kinds of ideas and visions for a project only to later get a phone call that they were going with someone else and came to find out that they went with an artist who was charging far less and production gave them all my ideas to execute. And that of course is saying nothing of the effect of the global pandemic and not being able to touch faces for nearly 2 years, nor of the industry strikes that have been going on the last couple years. Sometimes there are months when I don’t have a single day off, and sometimes there are months when I don’t have a single day of work, such is the nature of the industry. But with all that being said, I love what I do more than anything in the world and I couldn’t possibly see myself doing anything else with my life, so I continue to hustle all day every day for my dreams, which is really the best advice I can give anyone. If you know there is something you’re truly meant to be doing, don’t give up on it no matter what the cost.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I would like to think that I can fulfill the needs of any project or client I come upon. Although I’ve met challenges in my industry, I haven’t met one that I haven’t been able to overcome yet luckily. With that being said, I think what I’m probably known best for is creative and artistic looks. Now don’t get me wrong. I love a soft, simple, clean girl look and I can do those all day, but where I think I really shine is when I get clients in my chair who really have no fear and allow me to take a more unconventionally artistic approach, whether it be playing with colors or textures or graphic elements, that I think is probably what I’m known best for and definitely what I’m most proud of.

In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
It’s incredibly difficult at this point after the pandemic and after the strikes and all the changes in the industry and the upcoming challenges we face with AI to be able to hypothesize on what the industry will look like 5 to 10 years from now honestly. I hope that the changes that take place will be positive for artists and will help us to stretch our craft even further but only time will tell

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blushandbone/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@blushandbone