Jane Devin

One of the wonders of the human canvas lies in its ability to be customized to reflect an individual’s personality and character. The sensual nature of Cleopatra is expressed through eyes lined in dark kohl. The exotic brand known as Cher came to fame in glittering, belly-baring gowns. Farrah Fawcett capitalized on her girl next door looks with a bouncy haircut that was copied throughout the world.

In a land dominated by suits and jeans, Project Runway, a design show, became a breakaway hit. Magazines and television shows featuring before-and-after stories, where average looking ducklings become beautiful swans, are among the most popular. The aesthetics of fashion and makeup appeal, it seems, not only to our visual senses, but to our spirits of individuality. For some, leaving the canvas naked of anything except nature is the height of beauty. For others, the art of self-expression is enhanced through fashion, high style, and makeup.

The wizards working behind the scenes of fashion are known as stylists, but that sparse word doesn’t begin to cover their artistic bents or talents. They are Creators, who use both intuition and technical skill to highlight, shadow, downplay, or animate the art of human features.

Toronto recently rocked with the news that two of its favorite wizards, Jake Surrette and partner “Glamma”, were breaking out as independents with their new style enterprise, The House of Glamma. With three decades of vast experience between them, including stints at New York Fashion Week, Dior, Chanel, and Maybelline, and clients including Catherine Zeta Jones, Sarah McLachlan, and Hillary Duff, these two men – partners in life as well as business – are prepared to start a fashion fire. The House of Glamma has an all-encompassing approach to style which includes not only fashion, hair, and makeup, but custom body art as well.

Recently, the two men were in L.A., working their magic for the band Stars Down. I spoke to them as they were taking a break, in typical Jake and Glamma style, by getting the full mani-pedi treatment in a salon.

JD: Models come to you naked-faced and from what I can see, many of them are actually plain looking. What is it that creates photogenic beauty?

JAKE: Model or not, priming the canvas, the skin, is the answer to everything! If your canvas isn’t primed right, then the makeup doesn’t look good.

JD: What creates that elusive thing known as attractiveness? Is it symmetry, bone structure, eyes?

JAKE: All of the above, different for the individual. We believe in the eye of beholder. A freaky looking model can be beautiful, just not in the next door sort of way. And the eyes, of course, they are always the thing. The windows to the soul.

JD: If you could pick an ideal client, who would they be?

JAKE: Someone who is so into art, and appreciates our art as a collaboration.

JD: Have you ever had a nightmare client?

JAKE: Absolutely! There are people who are very stuck in their ways, and the nightmare is when they come in for change and don’t really want change at all. Old or young, they have dug in their heels, and nothing will get them unstuck!

JD: Have you ever had to just say no?

JAKE: We both have, yes. It’s hard, but one of the most important parts of collaborating is building mutual trust and setting boundaries. We can only get there by being honest, so if something doesn’t work, we’re going to be honest about that, and hope that it helps build the trust.

JD: The House of Glamma is also offering tattoo design. Do you have a specialty? Any tattoo philosophies to share?

GLAMMA: Original designs, our own and our client’s, will be the focus — very diverse — along with tribal and Asian art. I think tattoos should be personal, and represent something important, or a milestone, in a person’s life.

JD: Let’s play favorite products. From hair to eyeshadow, what products are you presently loving?

JAKE: For hair, definitely Redken Glass #01. Total shine.

GLAMMA: For foundation, we both like Maybelline’s mineral powder, and Makeup Forever. For lipstick, Moisture Riche or Laura Mercier. Glosses?

JAKE: Oh, Estee Lauder Steel, or Tarte. We also like the Tarte cheek stain and bronzers. And for eye shadows, Makeup Forever.

JD: What are some of the biggest fashion faux paus?

JAKE: Winged eyes that are drooping. Shimmer on an eyelid that is creasing. Frosted brows! Or over-tweezed brows. Wearing jeans that come up to the bellybutton – “Mom” jeans. People believing that they are a “season” – the biggest sham of the 80’s!

JD: What’s the best thing about working with your life partner?

GLAMMA: The best thing is we really get each other. We get each other in a way where we can sense desperation from across the room. Like during a show, when one of us has four minutes to makeup a model, and we’re not getting the look we want, the other one will jump in to the rescue. We don’t even need to talk about it, it’s just this connection between us.

JD: How do you strike a balance between your professional and personal lives?

GLAMMA: We have separate time. I like to read literature. And we make sure we have our time alone together. Work is work, like a mode, and we have places in the home where no discussion of work is allowed, like the bedroom. If you want a good relationship then you work on it. Communication is huge. We laugh at silly things and stupid things. There’s a lot of yin and yang.

JD: What do you think the future holds for you two and The House of Glamma?

GLAMMA: I’m not sure, but we’re loving the direction it’s headed in, and we’re willing to go wherever the stars take us. Life is an adventure!

As a child, I was often called imaginative, but it wasn’t meant as a compliment. It was meant in a “reality-is-calling, get your head out of the clouds”, kind of way. It was meant to discourage me from believing in the impractical or impossible.

I knew something then, though, that I couldn’t yet communicate. I knew that besides being the product of a vivid imagination, my vivid daydreams and imaginary friends were the creations of a mind striving to find rationality. That I created them as a rational response to an early life that left me striving to make sense of realities that, at ages 4, 5 and 6, were incomprehensible.

I know now, long past childhood, that the line between imagination and rationality is not meant to be a divider, but a connecting link. That imagination runs fluid with solutions and possibilities, while the rational mind filters them and gives them solid shape.

So Mars girls sprung to life to whisper words of wisdom into ears that needed to hear that them, while dark-eyed Amazons taught me to stand strong in adversity, and to fight for a self that had no other champions. The Dove Woman, representing peace, nurtured my want for love and gentleness.

I did survive, and I grew strong in the process. My spirit may be somewhat battle-worn, but I’m still able to fight the good fight without compromising my own feelings of tenderness and love.

And I know that the stereotypes are not true. A rational mind is not rigid, and a dreamer is not lost in the illogical. That both rationality and imagination are behind every brush stroke of Mona Lisa’s smile, and Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. That they connect – beautifully – in the pen strokes of Shakespeare and the musical notes of Mozart; in the quick wit of Dorothy Parker and George Carlin; and in the inventive genius of men like Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Bill Gates. That each of us, as human beings, share this connection.

John Lennon struck a chord when he sang, “you may say I’m a dreamer, well, I’m not the only one”. And he was right. To be human is to dream — and it is rational to want to bring our dreams to life. We are, each of us, gifted with complexity, and a bit of the divine.

We are not a single equation, but millions of equations, and if we were to each follow our highest sum, we would find ourselves not divided, but united. Not alone in our idealism, but joined. Not lost in dreams, but invested in making them come true.

We would not lean on tradition as excuse, and sayings like “well, it’s always been this way” would never be an acceptable justification for leaving things broken or in disrepair.

It’s a new election season in America, and on the heels of disaster, the possibility of change sparks both our imaginations and our desire for a more rational world. Is it possible, we ask, to heal the wounds of people and the rift between nations?

Is it possible to overcome the dogmatists who have sanctioned the rule of morally bankrupt and intellectually empty leaders? Can the voices of reason and compassion rise above the rallying cries of war and more war?

It was dissent against rigid dogmas, and not mindless compliance, that informed every word of our Declaration of Independence. And then, as now, the dissenters seek both a dream and an absolute. The dream is peaceful progress. The absolute is never again. Never again can we allow the want of revenge to override reason. Never again can we stand idly while politicians and big corporations sink our country into the swamp of a $9 billion dollar debt.

I believe the voice of rationality can overcome the stalemate and roadblocks not only of political divisions, but many other issues. My imagination sees the possibilities.

Presently, thousands of children live in the limbo of foster care. I can imagine a day when the most innocent and vulnerable among us are truly protected, not just in a moment of crises, but for the duration of their childhoods. When the “best interests of the child” is a promise fulfilled, and where a child’s right to live in safety, and without fear, is considered paramount.

I imagine a world in which every child is given multiple and varied opportunities to find, nurture, and expand their potential – and where doing so is not a luxury, but a given.

I believe that if we were truly motivated to nurture the best within our children, we would find many more Galileos in our midst. Einsteins and Newtons, Van Goghs and O’Keefes.

In a country that sought to revitalize the rational-imaginative minds of its people, we might see a final end to discrimination based on class, color, or sexuality. We might see a day when false limitations are universally known and believed to be false – and where character really is the ultimate determinant of one’s opportunities.

I can envision a time when rational tolerance is practiced. When the steady progression of humankind is the goal of all cultures, including the cultures of the religious and the traditionalists.

Neither religion nor tradition should stunt the evolution of humanity, or become an obstacle to individual liberties and freedoms. I would proffer that no God or other high-minded entity would have us mutilate the genitals of little girls, rape scores of women, or slay, torture, or starve thousands of people in order to advance a political, religious, or cultural agenda. To live in a world where even one act of such violence is considered unavoidable, or par for the course, is to have twisted the concept of tolerance into soulless apathy.

Humanity is not soulless, but our problems are many, our divisions are great, and recent years have discouraged our ideals. So many, reeling from tragedy, or facing a time of personal crises, are feeling the weight of despair. They may even be afraid to hope for better days, particularly in a climate that has traded rational imagination for deepening political divides. A climate in which war, torture, and death was marketed as a rational response, and those who sought answers and accountability were derided as “bleeding hearts”.

There’s a saying – “we all want to change the world.” Actually, we know that some, particularly those who profit in a time of war and destruction, would like to see it not change at all. Others find change threatening in some fashion.

The dreamers among us move forward, past our fears, because our minds recognize them as unnecessary limitations, and our imagination longs to see what is on the other side. We long to expand the boundaries and break the unnecessary barriers. We long to fill our individual selves with the light of possibility, and then carry that torch to the outside world. We long to create a legion of united individualists, who will stand together and usher in a new age of revitalization, and the reconciliation of our ideals with our everyday realities.

If we can dream it, it is possible. A battle to revitalize our spirits requires no enemies, and a revolution needs no guns when the goal is peace.

A revolution just isn’t that easy to pull off when you’re a former white-collar executive turned blue-collar working class stiff. There’s the whole pesky business of finding a new job in a new state, and explaining why your resume is wildly diverse. Media buyer, marketing manager, cook, writer, postal worker, salesperson, career counselor. I’ve handled million dollar budgets and served up hash on a plate. I’ve opened an in-house ad agency and filled penile implants with saline, but my reasons — “following my bliss” and “empirical experimentation” — will likely not go over well with prospective employers.

And unfortunately, the freedom to reinvent ourselves that we enjoyed in the 70’s and 80’s, when employers didn’t pull our complete life histories from the cold ass of a computer, is all but gone. Not only do They know your complete work history (and they are an uppercase entity now that they’ve capitulated to big brotherdom), they also know about that court date you had in 1972, what bills you’re paying (or not), and the middle names of your children.

Given that we’re presently subjects in the human version of Orwell’s Animal Farm, I may not make it as far as an interview. I may end up going door to door in California, offering my services as freelance writer, massage therapist, dog trainer, cook, driver, or house painter. Maybe I’ll end up fake drowning myself in someone’s pool, ala Nick Nolte and “Down and Out in Beverly Hills”, and become some dysfunctional rich couple’s saving grace. Or maybe the fates will find me playing Eldon to someone else’s Murphy Brown.

More realistically, I’ll probably end up working in an office again, doing something office-like, after I press through the jungle of Human Resources and end up in some executive’s office, where I’ll pull out all the standard devices of the unemployed. I’ll nearly burst at the seams with enthusiasm and a can-do attitude. I’ll be perky and positive, and when I’m asked to list my worst trait, I’ll tell them that I’m a people pleaser, or that I often ignore my personal time in favor of work.

Eventually, they’ll get to know the real me, but by then I’ll have impressed them with the only thing that should have counted in the first place – my work. Oh, they might be disappointed with my lack of participation in the company’s social functions, or my unsubtle disdain for the guy who needs to turn a five-minute meeting into an hour long bitchfest, and they might even feel compelled to talk to me about proper company etiquette and attitude, but they won’t have any complaints about my actual work. They’ll only wish that I could do it while acting as real as a Barbie or as pumped up as a Joel Osteen devotee.

I’m not looking forward to any part of the process, but unless I can pry some miracle from the clutches of saints and goddesses, it’s unavoidable. Until then, in a fit of honesty, I’ve written the bullet points of Jane as an employee.

• I hate cliches, especially really stupid ones like “There is no I in team”. No, but there is a me in team, and no us or we – and there is an I in some really great words like bliss, creative, and utopia. Do you really want to get me started?
• I’m irritated by those outdoor scene office posters with some pithy little saying at the bottom like “Success: found in not only what we achieve, but in what we try to achieve”, or “Winners: while most are dreaming of success, winners work hard and achieve it”. Can we please stop confusing an office and fluorescent lights with anything resembling nature? Can we stop using lame quotes as motivation?
• I’m just not that into nepotism. I won’t be particularly nice to that lazy, scattered brain nephew you hired to get your sister off your back. In fact, if he’s shiftless and vacant, and I have to do his work for him – or even if I’m just in proximity to the work he’s left undone – I will pretty much consider him fair game.
• I’m intolerant of all kinds of stupid, including interview questions like “Where do you see yourself five years from now?” or “Tell me about a problem you once had at work and how you handled it”. Every interviewee knows what kind of answers are expected, and we all know better than to give honest answers like “not here” or “I quit working for the asshole”. Why not ask real questions, ones where the answers might really matter? Like, what can you do for us? Will our office posters drive you nuts? What would you do to make my lazy ass nephew quit so I don’t have to fire him and deal with my sister?
• I have a neutral attitude. It shifts towards positive or negative depending on the reality of any given situation. I don’t fake happiness, or annoy people with baseless, chronic complaints. I believe in being genuine, even while getting paid.
• I’m passionate, driven by ideals and new ideas, hard-working, stubborn, independent, creative, funny, empathetic, intelligent, self-motivated, talented, resilient, tough, kind, energetic, and I do my best work with limited directions and minimal interactions – which is why I often work from home.
• I will replace any cheap, weak coffee in your office with the good stuff, and throw away all the styrofoam cups. I rank bad coffee right up there with other work blights, like sports talk, casual Fridays, potlucks, and needless meetings. And styrofoam cups just give me the willies. I shivered a little just typing the word.

Would you hire me? Would you hire yourself after taking an honest inventory of your own strengths and peccadillos?