We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Courtney Weis a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Courtney thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

My career as a Food Stylist started as a complete risk. I dove headfirst into the deep end of chance. December 2019 I was viciously unhappy in my very stable “big girl” office job. I stared at a screen for 8 hours a day. I actually got runners knees somehow from being so stagnant. Insane. Anyways, all day I would spend my time reading menus, researching new restaurant openings, watching how to videos about cooking, pretty much every tab open on my work laptop and on my phone was culinary related. It was incredibly obvious what my passion was, but I was too scared to pursue a career that I 1. had no background in and 2. is notoriously known for not being very lucrative. My partner at the time saw day in and day out how deeply unhappy I was at such a creatively starved job that I had no care for, and being the immensely loving and supportive human he is, said “hey, quit. i’ll take care of the bills, and you focus on your dream.” Which is the most selfless thing anyone has ever done for me and I am eternally grateful for that stability and love. So, with that wiggle room to pursue culinary, I decided to attend culinary school. This was January 2020… By March 15th, I was out of school and stuck at home. But thankfully I saved a couple grand by not returning. Plus I learned basic knife skills, mother sauces, vocabulary and all that jazz which allowed me to apply for a BOH gig. The only problem was my free fall into my dream of working with food was sprinkled with a massive obstacle by the name of Covid 19.
Fortunately, I’m driven as hell and have such a strong community of chef friends, that I was able to work in kitchens during the lock down. Some for free but with the trade being knowledge, some for money, some for both. Burgerlords, ghost kitchens, Sonoko Sakai, Kismet… I love you guys with all my heart. Thanks for taking a chance on me.
I’ll cut to the chase, I was working at Kismet on the hot line when I found out Food Styling is a thing. I have a vast background of fashion styling, studio assisting, graphic design, window displays, and so on, so needless to say I was intrigued. Of course LA fosters some strange niche job that combines culinary and the arts, in a more modern, sculptural, stylistic way. And it happens to pay well.
I share my new found interest with my buddies over some wine at Walt’s and within days I was cold emailing every single Food Stylist in LA begging for an opportunity to assist them. My mentality is whats the worst they can say? “No?” I’m big on the YOLO. Thankfully, people did end up taking a chance on me, and since then I’ve been Food Styling full time and the happiest in a career i’ve ever been. I never felt the click in a job until now. I encourage everyone to pursue your passions blindly, shamelessly and bravely. You only have this one life, use it how you wish.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

For those who don’t know me – Hiiiiiiii I’m Courtney. My backstory is full of styling and a bit of unprofessional tattooing. But now it revolves exclusively around Food Styling. And sipping wine in the sun. Food Styling is essentially just playing with food for a living. Most people have the misconception that it’s all fake, and that’s sorta true, but for the most part it’s edible. Edible in the sense that technically you can eat it, but you shouldn’t. It’s all undercooked, over touched and has sat for 10-12 hours. It truly is more of a temporary biodegradable sculpture and less a plate of food. One thing I love most about it is that every single set and client is different, and has different needs, ideas, paces, environments, shortfalls and crews. It really is a new experience and problem to solve every single time. I LOVE a challenge and ANYTHING new and ever changing. The monotony of prepping and cooking the same thing in the back of a hot kitchen is maybe cathartic in a repetitive and structured way, but soul sucking if what you long for is spontaneous creativity.
I think my passion and love for this weird craft overflows from me when I get the opportunity to talk about it and how I interact on sets. I personally think at the end of the day the reason I get hired back so often and have such consistent bosses and clients is that I’m easy as hell to get along with and I’m insanely thankful and fortunate to be in the position I’m in. I don’t take a moment for granted.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Not really a lesson, but I joke often that I have had to unlearn how to cook. Going into styling I thought it would be making FULLY cooked food look good. That is very much not the case. If you’re working on a cookbook, you may cook the entire recipe fully so the image is accurate. But for the most part, I’d say 89% of the time everything is massively undercooked and raw. Which really blesses you with a pungent aroma on set. The smell of a job well done or something like that.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

REJECT AI!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @not.courtney
• Other: [email protected]

Image Credits
Casey Dobbins and Nathan Carrabba for being my absolute kweens and teaching me all I know and continuing to teach me. I love you two.