Meet Suzy Eaton

We recently connected with Suzy Eaton and have shared our conversation below.

Suzy, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.

This is an interesting topic for me because in ,y day-to-day life I feel I lack self confidence and self esteem, but when I’m working, on a photo or video shoot, I’m in my element. I know what I am doing and have no issues being vocal or stern in my decision making. It’s the only time I feel this way about myself.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

This is something I wrote and submitted for an article about myself for Salt Lake Magazine. Feel free to re-word or re-order the dialogue to sound different.

The gig:
What my job entails….What is a food stylist? My job is to make food do it’s job. Whether that is to look so tasty that you want to eat it, or to be the life of a party on the table of in a scene from a movie, OR, it needs to acrobatically fly through the air in slow motion and strategically land on a bun or in a cup, or whatever the vessel is today.

How I got into this: Is seems like most of the best jobs find you rather than you finding them. That’s how it happened to me. My background is art. I paint and design and decorate which led me to an opportunity for me to volunteer some painting for a Christmas project where the woman in charge said she thought I was very talented and that I needed to come work for her.
So I did. I became her in-house artist and her photo stylist. I had no idea what that was at first, but quickly realized it was right up my alley. We published how-to books, so, for instance, if we were working on a book about jewelry, I would get 25 or so pieces of jewelry and create a vignette to showcase the piece and the photographer would take the picture to go in the book. After some time doing that, we started turning some of our books into interactive DVD’s, so I would have to decorate a whole set for the author to film a video in. I really love set decorating.

After a few years it was apparent that the business wasn’t making it and closed down and left us all unemployed. I struggled to figure out what I would do next and realized my heart was in styling now and decided to make a go as a freelance stylist. My thinking was that I needed to be skilled in all sorts of styling, so I added “food” to my list of skills thinking it would rarely come up. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Clients started calling. I was a little nervous, but knew that it was just another art project and I could figure it out. Soon it took over and I became a food stylist.
Now, going on 24 years, it couldn’t have worked out better. After a few years on my own, my daughter joined me and became my assistant and partner. We do most projects together.

Clients find me mostly by word of mouth. I have many clients that I have worked for over a decade. I also have a website to help someone find me.

A day in the life: I don’t know if I can say that any 2 days are the same. It all starts with the initial contact, usually followed by some story boards and/or a call to discuss the project. Many of my clients rely on me to help them come up with concepts and to figure out how to make it happen. I usually have to shop for supplies. We buy crazy amounts of things and are often asked what we are doing with it all. People find it fascinating.

We work in all kinds of places, sets, homes, tents, parking lots, hotels, casinos, even in a yurt at the top of a mountain. We work on commercials, movies, print ads, menus and food art.

We pack up the car with our kits and all of the necessities and head to the set or location. Some shoot are heavy cooking shoots where we make enough food for a dinner table or a party and others are very specific shots for a menu that require a lot of attention to detail. Sometimes I’m making fake ice cream and other times pouring gallons of caramel over a 4 ft tall stack of apples. Never a dull moment.

Memorable things:
So many. I once had to fly to Mexico City with 3 hours notice to make a Thanksgiving dinner for a commercial in a place that doesn’t celebrate the holiday with a pizza oven to cook a turkey in. Luckily, when I make a turkey, it’s not cooked, so I made it work. We have done fun commercials with puppeteers and stunt drivers and had to grill enough brats to fill an oil tanker. We’ve built a chocolate river and traveled all over the country.

It is a messy job, always a lot to clean up. It’s a MacGyver job, if you’re to young to get the reference, it means we’re always rigging something. We have to be able to make food behave in a way that it doesn’t want to. We waste a lot of food. That part of it is discouraging.

Best part! That I get to work with my daughter most every day and that I get to have a job that lets me be creative. I have to have that.

Challenging and surprising: The hours can be challenging, both the length and the times of day. Sometimes we work all night, or super early to catch the sunrise or when a restaurant is closed. I’m still surprised at all of the fun opportunities we have and all the great people we get to meet.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

by background in art has been the key skill that has made me successful in my career. It allows me the creativity I need to make it work. The old adage “practice makes perfect” or “believe in yourself” woul dbe my best advice.

How would you describe your ideal client?

A client that understands what it takes to make the job successful and is willing to allow the appropriate amount of time and values the skills it takes.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://suzyeaton.com
• Instagram: @suzyeatondesigns
• Facebook: suzyeatondesigns

Image Credits

Mike Kemp Images, Sabin Orr Photography, Jake Johnson Photography, Amy Herold Photography