Jackson Free Press

Ariel Boggess has always created art in mediums such as painting and drawing, so she says makeup was a natural fit.

Boggess, a Dallas, Texas, native, first moved to Jackson at age 5 when her grandparents got sick. Throughout her childhood, her family moved back and forth between the two cities. After she graduated from Yazoo County High School in Jackson in 2009, she moved back to Dallas from 2009 to 2010. She returned to Jackson in 2011 and began attending Hinds Community College, graduating in 2012 with an associate's degree in fashion marketing and marketing management.

While Boggess was in high school, she would experiment with makeup, using leftover materials from her mother Annette's time selling Mary Kay products.

"(Makeup) was just another form of drawing to me, or another form of painting," Boggess says. "I just really liked it."

She says that during high school, she would watch tutorials from celebrity makeup artist Petrilude on YouTube, which helped inspire her to take up the skill.

She began her business, GlamourFreak Makeup Artistry, in 2009. She says that when she would travel to Jackson from Dallas, she would do makeup for senior portraits with Rose Imaging Photo in Yazoo City. When she started going to Hinds, she stopped working with Rose Imaging and began focusing more on her own business.

Boggess says that in her business, she does mostly editorial work such as for commercials and high-fashion photography.

In Jackson, Boggess has done work for local fashion shows, such as Rock the Runway, and works with local photographers such as Imani Khayyam (who is also the Jackson Free Press' staff photographer) and Justin Hardiman.

She says that one of the hardest parts of transitioning from Dallas to Jackson as a makeup artist was the lack of reliable and far-reaching public transportation.

"Back in 2011, there was no bus system that could really just take me everywhere (in Jackson), and I was just like, 'What am I going to do?'" she says.

Boggess says her favorite part about being a makeup artist in Jackson is the creative atmosphere.

"I think there are a lot of creative people down here that just really need a voice and ... some guidance," she says. "... I just really like collaborating with people who have like minds and have the same forward-thinking ideas, as in fashion, moving forward, things like that."