Seeking the Creative: Cailin Cavanaugh, Makeup Artist

Cailin Cavanaugh, Powerpuff. MODEL: Hannah Crump. PHOTO: Stephanie Satriana

How would you describe your art in 3 words?

Thoughtful, resourceful, fun.

Cailin Cavanaugh, Antivalentines. MODEL: Lilly Whitehead. PHOTO: Stephanie Satriana

Cailin Cavanaugh is a prime example of the talent that emerges from innovative and spontaneous energy. The 20 year old Makeup Artist from Port Jefferson, New York began her makeup artistry at the end of her senior year of high school. After a few years of perfecting her craft whenever she found the time, Cailin now creates unique and bold looks several times a week. She continuously watches YouTube tutorials for inspiration, and has recently teamed up with a photographer friend to run photoshoots that match the aesthetic of the makeup. Cailin hopes to advance her craft and hold even bigger photoshoots in the future, ultimately hoping to leave her models and clients feeling inspired with a smile on their face.

Where/how do you gather inspiration?

Honestly inspiration comes from everywhere you look. It came from the forever 21 sales section, a tik tok me and my friend (stephanie satriana – who has taken all of these pictures – IG: @polarsev) saw over a year ago, music, Pinterest, my favorite childhood tv show. We start with small ideas, like Stephanie’s idea to do a shoot around the song good days [By artist SZA] and then it was, “Okay what colors do we think of and how does it feel when you listen?” I got the tan dresses the day of, we threw sheets from my beds (I was staying in a hotel at the time due to a house fire) up, some vines I had, and some sticky butterflies, and we make it work anyway we can. That’s the best part about all of this, is we take inspiration from anywhere we can and improvise what we can bouncing off each other’s ideas to make all of it happen.

What do you hope audiences retain from your work?

The biggest thing I hope my audience retains from my work would be the emotions within the stories we try to tell. Each shoot holds such different meaning and we put so much detail in to convey the emotion as strongly as we can through just a photo. We mess with things from hair to the outfits, the makeup, the posing, the lighting and take hundreds of pictures per shoot (really big shout out to Stephanie for filtering through and editing and Lilly and Hannah for being so patient and willing to participate) I hope that they can feel that emotion and understand that story from every post we make.