This story is from Prattfolio’s feature “Pivot Points,” on Pratt alumni navigating moments of uncertainty, change, and transformation in their life and work.
When he was a student at Pratt, D’angelo Thompson was looking for a job, something to help him earn a little extra money. He’d come to Pratt and New York City in 1989 from Chicago’s South Side, a young artist with a love of Parisian fashion and classic-film glamour that he says he didn’t realize might translate into a career, until a high school counselor suggested art school and Pratt.
For a student side gig, a friend suggested makeup artistry: “You’re always doing our makeup for the clubs or for a fashion show,” Thompson recalls his friend saying, and he thought, why not, he’d give it a try. “I started at the bottom,” he shares, working in retail with different brands—Fashion Fair, Bobbi Brown, Lancôme—and took every opportunity to learn the trade, knowing that he wanted to use everything he was learning to grow.
“What are you going to do with this knowledge, this fashion knowledge, this love of art history, this love of beauty?” he recalls asking himself. “Then I met a few mentors who took me under their wing. I would say to anyone, if you can find a mentor who will guide you, that’s very important.”
Incrementally, the work grew to photo shoots, commercials, press junkets, television, film—with honors along the way (three Daytime Emmy nominations and a Daytime Emmy Award, for The Wendy Williams Show)—and for Thompson, whose wide-ranging career now spans 34 years, there were always new avenues to explore.
“I would say to any artist, never think you can only do one thing,” he says. “There was a time I thought I could only be in the world of sales training. And then someone said, ‘Hey, you want to do this TV project? You want to do this film?’ I always would say, ‘Yes, why not?’ And it has led me to expand my skill set.”
“I thought, you have to not have all your eggs in one basket. You have to have many rivers of opportunity coming to you.”
It wasn’t always opportunity calling that brought him to those doorways. In 2001, Thompson was successfully freelancing, booked and constantly busy with commercial shoots around the city. On 9/11, everything stopped. He was at home, watching the news from his sofa, “sitting there for hours, like everyone else around the world, trying to decipher what had just happened,” he says. “I thought, the world has shifted. So it took about two days, and then I realized, oh, I don’t have any work.”
He took stock of his savings, how he could get by and for how long. “That’s when your gifts come in as a creative,” Thompson reflects. “I started to think, OK, I’m a makeup artist. What else can I do with my makeup artistry that’s going to bring in income? I was like, you’re watching TV. Everyone’s still in hair and makeup, even though they’re talking about this horrific thing that has happened . . . somebody’s back there working. I said, OK, I’m going to pivot.”
Advice from the field: Onward and upward
“Know when to leave a job. I think that’s the biggest thing I would say to anyone: Know when it’s time to pivot. Know when it’s time to give yourself a promotion.”
Then, almost literally, opportunity did knock: “At that moment, I got a call from a woman who owned a salon. She said, ‘I know it’s an awkward time, but my client is still getting married. Their family is all here, and they’re having their wedding. Would you be interested in doing the makeup for the wedding?’”
Thompson said yes, and through this moment of personal and collective grief, found not only a path forward but a beam of clarity. “It was all of a sudden—I thought, you have to not have all your eggs in one basket. You have to have many rivers of opportunity coming to you,” he says. “That was the answer I got during that time, and that’s how I operate now. Again, I would say to any artist: You have many skills. You’re not one-dimensional. I’ve learned over the years, I’m not just a makeup artist. I’m a creative, and what does that mean?”
In Thompson’s case, it has meant working with all kinds of people in a whole range of contexts, and also teaching in the fashion department of Kent State’s New York City campus, studying psychology (he completed his degree last fall), writing, and career coaching, particularly on the subject of pivoting.
When asked about what’s been essential to him through his career, Thompson says, unequivocally, relationships. “It’s all the people that I met over 34 years ago at Pratt,” like Professor of Fashion Design Adrienne Jones and fellow alum Jelani Bandele, alumni engagement manager for The Black Alumni of Pratt. “No matter where I travel in the world, I know someone, because I took the time and the energy to stay in touch and check in on people. I think my key to success is really cultivating and maintaining those relationships, and helping others get ahead as well.”