The Precipice: Hope Curran Lundblad

"It’s an armor you can use—but I don’t think it’s a good shield to hide behind."

Welcome to the inaugural issue of The Precipice, an interview series in conversation with interesting women who are entering their next decade. Working in the beauty/lifestyle media space has caused me to interrogate the Beauty Industrial Complex™ and my place in it. I get thousands of emails every week promising to make me (and my readers) prettier—which usually means younger, firmer, tighter…through the violent means of zapping, battling, eradicating, injecting—you get the point. Pain in the pursuit of perfection. I don’t consider myself beauty critical, but all this messaging has led to the desire to think critically about the system in which I exist (and to many extents, prop up). One of the big things I’ve realized: Time is such a gift, and so is aging. I don’t want to be anti-aging. What a privilege it is to accumulate wisdom and life experience. In this interview series, I speak with women about how their relationship to beauty culture changes as they get older, and all the beautiful (and sometimes challenging) things that come with it.

I’m so happy that the very first interview features one of my dearest friends, the artist, poet, watercolorist, free-spirited Hope Curran Lundblad. We met as two wandering souls in Paris, which, arguably, is the city of artists. After obtaining her masters degree in fine art at the Sorbonne, Hope spent several years in San Francisco working in an art gallery that represented the likes of Andy Goldsworthy and Ai Weiwei. She now splits her time between California and Burgundy, France.

Find Hope:

https://www.instagram.com/photohope/

https://www.hopefolio.com

What’s in your beauty bag/on your vanity?

It changes based on [my travels]. Right now, allergy relief, because if you don’t have them, your eyes are real red and puffy. I also love French skincare. I have this Avène tinted SPF foundation. Usually, I moisturize with face tallow made by my sister, which is a new discovery for me—it’s a regenerative natural face moisturizer, so it helps heal. Also at the bottom of the bag: a dermaplaning tool, a travel perfume from Fragonard (scent: Diamant), Yves Rocher mascara and eyeliner.

What’s your favorite beauty product/tool?

My hairbrush. I swim every day, and that’s important. And I can’t get over the face tallow. I use it on everything, multiple times a day.

What’s great about being on the precipice of 30?

I find it to be an interesting step. [Recently], I went to a 30th birthday [party], so it feels relevant. It’s a year people do want to celebrate and feels the closest to 21 in the sense of it being a “big” birthday [but not feeling], ‘[oh], I’m getting really old.” We think of the phrase “30, flirty, and thriving”—there’s cultural relevance to 30 in America that I feel is celebrated.

What I’ve heard and I’m excited about is, people say your 20s are rocky, trying to figure out who you are and what you’re passionate about and what you’re doing. Thirty feels like you’re [hitting your] stride. I’m excited because I feel like I have a lot more boundaries now. I can say no and yes to things that I’m actually [interested in and] not just doing [to build] up my resume. There’s potential for so much. It could go in so many different directions. I don’t have children now and in ten years I might. So it’s a crazy decade, too—a lot of change as a woman. And then there’s menopause. So it’s like, whoa, is that coming? It could come sooner. Some women experience it as early as 32. So it’s an interesting hormonal shift this decade as well.

What would you tell your past self about your beauty values today?

I think there was like a bit of embarrassment about beauty growing up of, “Oh, this brings attention to me, and maybe the attention I don’t want.” [Now], I would tell myself to embrace the fun of it rather than feeling embarrassed about being seen. I’ve gone in and out of seasons where I’m intentionally not wearing makeup because I want to be confident without it. And other seasons where I do wear it because I want to be awake and active and professional and step into new things. It’s an armor you can use—but I don’t think it’s a good shield to hide behind. [Beauty can] share a part of your identity that’s more creative and [polished]. Other times you just need to be bare-faced and be natural. Getting dressed up can be celebrated, not just seen as hiding or vain.

What is your earliest beauty memory—a product, experience, feeling, epiphany? What was your “inoculation” into beauty culture?

The first thing that’s coming to mind is, I had a friend whose mom was a hairdresser. This girl would always have fun bangs; her mom would always do her hair. Once I entered a raffle as a fourth grader and I won a haircut from this woman. That was my first professional haircut. She shampooed my hair and there was salon shampoo, and I was like, “Oh, this is special.”

Relationships were so important to me [and I wanted to belong] and have this cool experience that other friends had had. They’d show up to school with a new haircut and everyone talked about it. And I was like, “I’m gonna chop my hair off. I think it’ll be a way to make friends or have this connection to people.” There was a mixed response. Some people [said], “I liked your long hair.” Then it [made me question], “Am I still beautiful?”

My mom would take us to Grocery Outlet, and I remember finding this [cheap] salon shampoo, but it was a little bit more than what my mom wanted to pay. [But, I was adamant that I needed it.] I remember it being this thing I would share with special people in the showers at swim practice and feeling like I had this super power through my shampoo and conditioner because it was fancy. My hair was always my statement piece; it became a big part of my identity. So when I cut it, [people asked] why [I did] that. That kind of shifted my relationship to beauty—and then I made art about it later on in life.

Do you remember your first insecurity?

I think the first thing that comes to mind is in fifth grade, there was a boy that liked me that I didn’t like. I got a lot of unwanted attention from my friends and him, [asking me] “Why don’t you like me back?” I actually didn’t go to school one day, it was so bad. People would tease me about it and I felt very insecure. I was like, “I don’t have to. I don’t owe you anything. You’re my friend. We’re in fifth grade. What are you expecting?” I think it was kind of all peer pressure and friends that were being mean.

What’s something you love about yourself?

I love being an artist. [It’s] something that gives me a lot of freedom, a free pass in life [to] do whatever I want. I like making things that make people feel special and loved or cry. That is a superpower in and of itself, to connect with people through beauty.

What/how do you define “beautiful”?

The word transcendence. Rapture. Being taken to a new place. When we think about beauty, oftentimes we connect it to love [or] very cheesy beauty that can be so cliché. I think beauty is an innate design that we are created for [something]. This is where spirituality comes in for me. Faith and even religion—ritual that brings forth beauty into your life. Whether it’s taking communion or going to a sanctuary or a place of worship, there’s a beauty in that, [which] can bring forth rapture because that brings you to a place of fullness of humanity. Art museums are those places where you can step into transcendence because you’re looking into the eyes of so much beauty and creation from humanity that can take you to a new world of belief and hope and lament. Beauty takes us somewhere.

How do you feel about the phrase, “anti-aging”?

It feels unnatural. Some of the “anti” words in the world can be quite harsh. I think it’s marketing scheme, [and] if it didn’t exist, people wouldn’t think about it as much. But it’s there, so it’s become a need, created a market. I’ve been getting grey hairs this year and I’m like, “Wait, no.” Wisdom comes with grey hair. I really do think there’s so much wisdom with age that you really just can’t have until you have time under your belt. I’d rather be wise than beautiful, [but] I think beauty and wisdom go hand in hand. We want to take back time as humans. It’s a natural thing [to feel] regret or wanting more time on Earth. Anti-aging makes sense. There’s good desire behind it, but it’s not the reality of our human existence.

Your position on: fillers, injectables, plastic surgery, Ozempic, etc.

I have had plastic surgery. When I was six years old, I cracked my head open [and a plastic surgeon stitched me up to prevent crazy scarring]. [My nephew also had surgery to correct a skull deformity. At the time, his parents had to decide, “Do we want him to look really, really different than everyone else and have this possible health issue? Or should we do the surgery that is like going to help him, which is also cosmetic?”] It’s a big decision, but I do think you can help people feel like they have less barriers into society because of the way they look. That’s a whole question about disability and difference that can be addressed as well as accepting people for the way they are. But fillers, I honestly think it’s ridiculous. But context is really important. I’m in Northern California, and [if people are doing it, it’s very discreet]. We’re pretty natural up here. In contrast, in Southern California it’s like a pride thing [to say you’re getting Botox]. The culture is very different around it in San Francisco, and I’m thankful for that. It’s more like, “Let’s go out and hike” is the addiction.

Your biggest fear, as it relates to the Beauty Industrial Complex?

[As a woman, your body just changes so much over time.] There’s so many standards that you can’t live up to. [There’s also possible] disease or sickness that comes. [For example, my mom has cancer and has said she hates her hair. When you go through something like that, of course] you’re not going to have a lot of hair and you’re going to look different. There’s a lot of dignity she feels she’s lost, but I think it’s making her even more beautiful. I think that reality of age and time on our bodies…the more insecurities that come with that, I want to be embracing it in a way that’s beautiful and living. I want to look my age; I want to look 30. I don’t want to look 22. That’s something I’ve been saying to myself. I want to look my age, [I] never want to look not my age, because I’ll be authentic and represent myself better.

What has been your most terrible beauty product/experience/advice received?

In middle school, I would do a twisty electronic thing that was supposed to braid your hair. Anyway, it was terrible. They were torture traps. A bad experience.

What’s the most lovely thing you’ve experienced today, this week, month, and year?

A rainbow I saw on a walk with my mom last week. The hills were so green, it looked like Ireland. [Maybe] age, like nature shows us the [importance of] time because each season comes with a new beauty, even if it’s bare or full or messy.

What’s a work of art your love, in any medium, and why?

The water lilies at the Orangerie in Paris, because you're surrounded by them.

What’s an affirmation you always tell yourself, that you actually believe?

I am loved.

I’m always looking for interview subjects! If you know someone who’d be interested in being featured on The Precipice, please send them my way. The only requirements: They must be within one to two years of their next decade, and have some public online presence.