Billy B. makes full-body makeup an art form with a recent project for MAC.		May 1, 2003 American Salon
	My interpretation of the King of Hearts.	It's good to add a few octaves to your creative voice. I've never gotten used to doing the same thing day in and day out. Monotony just won't help you grow. And if you don't grow, is it really worth it? Thriving on change and challenge, I recently stepped outside my comfort zone for a project I did for MAC benefiting the MAC AIDS fund. MAC asked 52 different celebrities, designers, and artists-including Susan Sarandon, Alexander McQueen, and Sante D'Orazio -to design one card each from a deck of cards that they will put together as a limited edition set with a portion of the proceeds going to its charity. I was one of the few makeup artists asked to participate. I was overwhelmed because of the ranks that I would be joining. We had to come up with a design using the entire naked body. I was intimidated, not by working on someone in the buff (that's old hat) but by fear that my design wouldn't hold up next to all these incredibly creative people. I came up with several ideas that I presented to MAC, and they chose one that was picked to be a coveted face card-the King of Hearts. My design was based on some pics I did of Iman for a coffee table book called Soul shot by photographer Thierry Le Gou`(powerHouse Books, 1997). I painted her from head to toe in shiny, jet-black grease paint for a black-and-white photo. I built upon this idea for the card by casting a huge bodybuilder, painting him black, and having him photographed from the back in a classic bodybuilder pose with a big, red, shiny heart painted across his butt cheeks. My creation was featured in an article in Time Style & Design, and Vanity Fair did a piece on the whole thing in February. At the unveiling of the project at a gallery in New York City, live models strutted around showing off their suit, so to speak. It was great to see art in motion. In the end, I was very happy with my King of Hearts. It looked even better than I thought it would. Testing your-self and your capabilities keeps you fresh and motivated. Do it often enough, and you'll automatically rise to the occasion.