From Catholic schoolgirl, to Playboy Bunny, to world traveler and years living abroad as a fashion & beauty makeup artist, to illustrator & artist, to recruiter of creative talent, and now spiritual writer, Barbara Camp has lived an enterprising life. New York City has been home since 1986.

A card-carrying Baby Boomer, she often declares, “I wouldn’t want to be one second younger.” Looking younger is a whole different story. Camp is passionate about her mid-century modern birth and its dramatic, sociological, chronological timeline: from Elvis and his madly kitsch movies, to Doctor Strangelove and bomb shelters, to the cataclysmic Kennedy assassinations, Sgt. Pepper, NASA moon landings, Vietnam, air guitar, 007, SNL, to striking real matches while clamoring for the concert encore: “Play Free Bird!”, to Farrah, disco balls, Blade Runner…to Steve Jobs and Apple. Baby Boomers, historically, have a lot on their minds. And Camp has a lot on what’s left of hers.

She was born in the Midwest and, given her father’s career advancement at RCA (Radio Corporation of America—inventor of television and the network NBC), she endured a childhood of systematic moving from city to city. By the time her family settled in Chicago, she had attended four Catholic elementary schools (3 alone in the first grade) and three high schools (one a convent boarding school). To this day she can identify any plaid ever used in a parochial school uniform.

Camp’s degree in Interior Design from the University of Illinois spawned multiple creative careers starting with a brief spell as set designer and makeup artist for PLAYBOY magazine in Chicago. This position came years after her college, summer job as a Playboy Bunny. Another uniform—not plaid—blue satin.

Leaving Chicago with a one-way ticket to Milan—never been there, didn’t speak Italian, the internet was decades into the future—she took her makeup artist show on the global fashion road, also working in London and Paris before moving to New York. Her fashion client list includes Vogue, Bazaar, Elle, Vanity Fair…, nearly every fashion, beauty and luxury brand, as well as hundreds of celebrities (see Fashion Archives page).

Camp has also invested considerable time, energy, and money into diverse creative ventures. Her illustration/art clients have included the New York Times, the Coca-Cola Company, and Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway musical, Follies. Coming full circle, she is presently a recruiter within the interior design, architecture and luxury lifestyle industries. Born to party. Forced to work.

Barbara Camp was hardly seeking a relationship with God when things began to happen—all analytically and personally underscoring the difference between coincidence and plan. Having regularly engaged in professional reinvention, she reckons her writing is focused on recruiting a different caliber of candidate: your immortal soul. Google “God” and you’ll find an ever-increasing 9,180,000,000 results. As the ultimate influencer, billions, of folks have followed God long before social media—or any media—reared its all-consuming, highly addictive, cacophonous head.

People hesitate to say they are religious but are spiritual. Camp is both. Would you dismiss the entire practice of medicine even though the field is partially populated with amateurs prescribing more pills than the Valley of the Dolls? Many have had unpleasant childhood experiences with religion so now want nothing to do with God. But lifelong conclusions formed at age fourteen are often irrelevant to adulthood. Just look at your hair. Popular thought continues to believe the natural can cure the natural while habitually ignoring the supernatural. Camp prefers to explore the latter.