May 1, 2017

Meet Heather Caunt-Nulton of Henna by Heather

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Heather Caunt-Nulton.

Heather, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I started doing henna in 1999, when I was an anthropology major at Boston University. I continued to do it as a hobby throughout my undergraduate years, and then, shortly after starting graduate school for linguistics at UMass Boston, I was invited to fill in for another henna artist who fell ill right before an important event. That artist happened to also be the manager of the shop, and when she saw the work I had done, she invited me to come back as often as I wanted. I had no intention of doing artwork professionally, as I was very involved in my academic career. But throughout my studies for my graduate student years, all the way through when I was done with my coursework and exams for a PhD in Applied Linguistics from Boston University, I kept doing henna on the side. Eventually, it became clear that henna was a more viable career path than linguistics, with the sad state of colleges mostly just hiring adjunct professors for low pay and poor or no benefits these days, and all of the non-academic jobs mostly requiring the MA I already had rather than the PhD I was about to finish. So, at the depths of the Great Recession, I decided that it made the most sense to pursue the path of the professional henna artist, which had been showing signs of being more lucrative than academia for many years at that point. Throughout my career as a henna artist, I have always worked closely with other artist friends, so as my business grew, it was an easy transition to hire them for events that needed multiple artists, or when I wasn’t personally available. Now I have a team of artists who I work with quite regularly at everything from weddings, to private parties, to college and corporate events and festivals.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Since I’ve always taken things as they’ve come, and never tried to force my way down a path that wasn’t already in the process of opening itself up to me, I have not met with much resistance. The one thing that is non-ideal about being a full-time professional henna artist is that it is an extremely seasonal business. Most weddings, festivals, and other big celebrations happen in warmer months. So my main challenge has been to figure out how to take an income that varies wildly throughout the year and make sure that I have squirreled away enough each summer to get me through the winter.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Henna by Heather – what should we know?
I specialize in creating body art freehand with natural henna. Among clients, I’m generally known for my clean line work, attention to detail, speed, and ability to tackle just about any artistic challenge. Among my fellow artists, I am best known for the contributions I make to others’ henna art learning process. I create demonstration videos, answer dozens of henna-related questions daily on my blog and artist forum, and travel far and wide to teach the art of henna. I am very happy that my art allows me to travel, and that I have gone as far as California, Mexico, and even Australia to share the art of henna with others.

But the thing I am the happiest about is that I am able to pursue my passion for henna and manage to make a living at it. As an anthropology major and someone who strongly values cultural traditions, I make a habit of creating eBooks for designs for other henna artists to use in their own businesses, and the process of doing all of the visual and cultural research for each of these is really what keeps henna infinitely interesting for me. Another thing I would say I am known for is the fact that I honor, respect, and do my best to faithfully share and engage with the different cultural traditions of henna, ranging from Indian, to Middle Eastern, to North African, and beyond.

Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
I think the fact that I grew up having access to computers from a very young age was essential to my future success. I am just the right age that when I was growing up, having a computer at home was not completely unheard of, but it was still relatively rare. So I understood how special it was, and what a great resource was at my fingertips that not everyone else had. My first mini business after a lemonade stand was an eBay store, at the dawn of its existence. So I learned very early that the internet is fantastic for learning about things beyond your own world, as well as for its potential to connect you to other people who like the things you like. I created websites just for the love of it, including the world’s largest Ska/Punk music resource when I was a teenager. Knowing how to code HTML from scratch, understanding how directories and later search engines worked, and all of these other basic things – they really helped me have a huge leg up when it comes to the other things I want to pursue. It just so happens that currently, that thing is henna. I am very happy to be able to build my internet presence on my own due to this knowledge. Knowing science and technology is very important, even for careers that seem, on their surface, to have nothing to do with them.

Pricing: