The Food Issue
2015
grainswest.com
17
GW:
How did you decide to become a food stylist?
Spicer:
Nobody is at all surprised that I ended up in some aspect
of the creative food industry. When I was four, I was out playing
in the sandbox and I made a bunch of mud pies. I put them in the
oven like I’d always seen my mom do, closed the oven and walked
away. My mom then came in to make dinner and she turned the
oven on to preheat. I was in a lot of trouble. Between that and
apparently decimating my grandmother’s house plants for salad—
thank God I didn’t eat it—it was always sort of known that I liked
to muck around, and my preferred craft or creative outlet was
food. My mother was also a food stylist, and I started working
with her. She was one of the first professional food stylists. Then
I went to the University of Guelph and took a degree in food and
consumer studies, so I learned a lot more about why food behaves
the way it does.
GW:
What does a food stylist do?
Spicer:
There are so many different areas a food stylist works in:
commercial, editorial, cookbook illustration and media. So you
work on all these different platforms. I tell a story, that’s what I
do. A client will come to me and say, “We would like you to devel-
op 100 recipes for us that fit these criteria, and we would like a
photograph to go with each recipe.” The photograph tells the sto-
ry of the recipe, and within that there is the propping, which is
really important. If you’re telling a story about a really nice roast
beef that you’re going to serve, you don’t put a bottle of ketchup
in the picture. You’re trying to capture the viewer’s attention and
build an “I can” moment—I can buy this, I can make this or I can
eat this. That’s what food stylists do. They tell stories, engage,
and capture and create “I can” moments with the end consumer.
A food stylist affects you and your decision-making every day,
usually many times. Isn’t that weird when you think about it? It’s
marketing, and it’s a food stylist that’s been behind that. It’s not
somebody saying, “Well, let’s slap an omelette on there.”
GW:
Is all the food you work with 100 per cent real?
Spicer:
We don’t fake out food anymore. It’s all real. Not that I
would eat it afterwards, but that’s because it’s been so handled
and sitting out. It hasn’t been prepared for consumption. It’s been
prepared for photographs.
GW:
What are the most important aspects of food styling?
Spicer:
Lighting is huge. It’s the most important part. You’d
think the food was, but you can make food that looks amazing
to the naked eye, and if it’s lit incorrectly, what was the point?
Then the second most important part ties into that—it’s great
communication with the photographer. The photographer must
be on board and engaged with the story we’re telling. You’ve
got to be able to talk about what the story is, the intent of the
project and the end user’s expectations, and build the lighting
to honestly reflect that.
GW:
What is it like working with so many agricultural
organizations?
Spicer:
They’re my favourites. They often come to the table
without an art director and an artist and a whole expensive
team, so I’m valuable to them because I provide a lot of those
little nuances. I love working with agricultural products because
it’s just a real passion for me, personally. As a home economist,
these are education moments. We’re doing educational videos,
we’re doing cookbooks and we’re doing ads that really speak to
what this product is for the end consumer. That end consumer is
Canadians and their families. You’re showcasing the bounty, and
I’m all over that.
GW:
What’s something about your job that might surprise
people unfamiliar with food styling?
Spicer:
I think one of the most surprising things is the amount of
education and the number of years of experience it takes to be a
good food stylist.
GW:
What knowledge and training is required to become a
good food stylist?
Spicer:
You have to be creative, in terms of understanding the
basics of creating anything artistic, like colours, textures, all of
that. You have to not just love food, but also work with food. You
have to have cooked a lot of food, and you have to understand
food technically. A lot of chefs make very good food stylists be-
cause they understand food from a technical level. If you are not
a detailed, organized person, food styling is not for you. If some-
thing goes wrong, you have to be prepared to fix it immediately.
I have a huge tool kit with all kinds of crazy stuff inside. I use a
heater to cook steaks and burgers, and to put browning marks on.
I’ve got an assortment of propane torches, really good knives and
lots of funny little goofy things. There are lots of unusual tools
that you collect over the years.
GW:
What’s next for you in terms of future projects or career
goals?
Spicer:
I’d like to be more involved in the artistic direction of
a food shoot and working on larger platforms. I love doing the
styling, but I wouldn’t mind being on the other side of the camera
sometimes and saying, “Yeah, that looks good.” But I’m very hap-
py to do what I do, which is working with a fabulous, developing
food industry. It’s natural for Alberta to be growing more into the
food industry, and creating those images for the end consumer is
a huge part of that industry, so I’m just really excited about that
future.
