Food as an Art Form & Career: Culina’s Story
Honey image photography by Kate Grewal food styling by Culina Creative. Donut image photography by Tom McGovern food styling by Culina Creative for Matthew Merril’s Cookbook: Teen Baking Bootcamp
If you’ve stumbled across this page out of a sheer love for food, that’s pretty much how I found my career as a food stylist and recipe developer.
The thing is that before Culina was even a concept, before I truly knew that I wanted to combine my background in food service with my past design experience to create the career of my dreams, food styling wasn’t really discussed. In fact, it still isn’t.
So, if you love to eat, cook, look at, talk and think about or merely be in the presence of food, you’re in the right place. But if you’ve ever pondered the idea of making your love of food your life’s work, you might want to consider food styling.
How my career as a food stylist started.
My first jobs were in restaurants. I fulfilled the roles of dishwasher, crab steamer, oyster shucker, and line cook. Picture everything from the front of the house to the back, and I’d done those jobs, all while finding ways to fuel my natural artistic talent.
Shortly after arriving at school to study art, I was told that artists don’t really make money. So, I figured graphic design was the way to go. After graduating, I began working at an ad agency that focused on food service and hospitality brands.
Working as a designer for these food and hospitality brands was monumental for me; it was where I was introduced to food styling. Prior to that, I’d had no idea that food styling was even a job.
I immediately knew that I’d found my dream job, and started researching everything I could find about professional food styling. I met with the best stylist in the area and asked her a million questions, and then I went off to cooking school.
After cooking school, I started taking on food styling clients and quickly realized that my styling services would always be a direct exchange of my time on set for money. I didn’t mind it, but I knew that I needed to find a way to supplement the time I spent on individual food styling projects with a more passive form of income - so, I introduced recipe development to my list of services.
Recipe development allowed me to work during those odd non-shoot hours. Before I knew it, my recipe work began to take off, and I decided to hire other chefs to assist me in writing recipes. Outsourcing portions of my recipe writing service freed up more time for me to take on more food styling shoots, therefore allowing me to run a business I loved that was 100% about the art of food.
What I wish I’d known.
TO BE COMPLETELY HONEST, I WISH I’D KNOWN JUST HOW DIFFICULT IT WOULD BE TO FIND FELLOW STYLISTS WHO WERE WILLING TO SHARE THEIR TIPS, TRICKS AND RESOURCES.
There’s a belief in the food styling community that to share information is to hurt one’s own business, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Starting out as a food stylist during the time that I did was difficult. I hadn’t realized how few food stylists and recipe developers actually connected with one another - and that made it difficult to find people who were willing to “talk shop.”
Owning a business can be lonely. Finding others who understand the minutiae behind what you do and how you do it can be so helpful and encouraging - it would’ve been great to find more food stylists who were going through the same journey that I was.
Where I’ll take Culina.
Like I mentioned before, Culina actually started out as Jeffra Designs. Once my team grew, I knew that I needed a brand that encompassed all of us + all of the different things we offer and do; hence our new brand name, Culina Creative.
I plan on accommodating even more recipe writing in the future, while also creating the food styling community that I sought out back when I first started my business.
CULINA WILL OFFER FOOD STYLING AND RECIPE WRITING EDUCATION THAT’LL COVER EVERYTHING FROM CREATING FAKE FOOD TO INVOICING AND PREPARING FOR JOBS.
This business first started out as a way for me to do something I loved. Now, Culina’s evolved to help others do the things they love (with food), too.
If you’ve never considered food styling until this blog, I hope you will. And if you’re *right* on the brink of trying it out for yourself, consider this your helpful nudge to go for it - you won’t regret it.
MORE FOOD STYLING TIPS
4 Tools Every Food Stylist Needs
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