I was going to write a new post saying goodbye to 2020 and welcoming in 2021 with open arms – then was rereading my Welcome letter for The 2020 Issue of On Makeup Magazine and thought it summed my headspace right now up pretty well already. So here is a look back at that letter – and forward with hope that we can take some gratitude from the lessons we learned along the way this year and use them for our more powerful and connected tomorrow. Here’s to 2021!
ON MAKEUP MAGAZINE – THE 2020 ISSUE WELCOME
Well, this has certainly been one a hell of a year.
And while that statement might initially be taken in a negative way, its intention here is one of hopeful positivity.
This has been a year of shifting focus, adjusting our expectations and moving forward -most often toward uncertainty – but forward nonetheless.
It has been a year of coming together, on so many levels as a society and an industry. It has been a year of supporting one another on a level that few thought could exist. It has also been a year where we have been forced to rethink, rework and renew so many pieces of our lives and careers. As an industry, we have been forced to look at who we are, what is important to us and how we grow in a positive direction. As a community we are seeing, listening and supporting. We are learning, engaging and making room for new ways of thinking about beauty and business and our brothers and sisters in artistry.
There is no doubt that this is hard and that the path forward will continue to be a challenge. It is also clear that when the dust settles, we will find ourselves left with a more thoughtful, more connected and more powerful future.
I am personally going to take much more from this year than the challenges and the hardship it has brought with it. I will remember that we didn’t miss so much of what we thought we would miss, and that we discovered so much more than we expected – about ourselves and about each other – along the way.
I will move forward with the hope that we never go back to what we once saw as normal, or acceptable. This time and place has done so much to help us see clearly and has allowed us to begin making important changes. Now it’s our job to keep that momentum going.
A time of evolution has begun. Looking to the past should give us lessons, but not a design for our future. Hindsight, you see, is indeed 2020, and if we take the lessons of this year and use them to see our future more clearly we will have made our most difficult year also our most important one.
Michael DeVellis
Editor, On Makeup Magazine