"Food art is a narrative on our current social time and our connection to the land and our families and society." - Q&A with Molly Reeder
A lover of food and art, Molly Reeder was our featured illustrator in Comestible Issue 5 and Issue 6.
She uses pen, pencil, and watercolor to not just capture the essence of food, but also does botanical illustrations. I like her work because it manages to express simplicity of an item of food through great technical complexity.
Often, I can’t stop looking at her work, and I often go back to pieces again and again. I find them inspiring and captivating, like her watercolor of an oyster, which done at a large scale is not just an invitation to celebrate the beauty of the bivalve but also to contemplate its mysteries.
I caught up with Molly to learn a little more about her process and what drives her creative work.
What is your first memory of making art?
A few come to mind, I have been drawing since I was very very young. But one of my first was entering a Campbell's soup art competition when I was 5. I drew my family eating tomato soup around our dining room table, in colored pencil, and sent it in. Campbell's sent me a certificate of a job well done and I remember feeling very proud.
What draws you to making art that is focused on food?
I love food and I love art, and so I just put the two together! I love putting a different kind of showcase on food. Food styling is one thing, making something appear beautiful before digging into it in real life. But painting or drawing something that we eat, something that is ephemeral and has been made and will disappear—that is a unique and interesting space that has the power to linger a bit longer. And painting or drawing offers a timelessness that I think the camera doesn't always have the ability to capture.
Your work is very detailed and realistic, yet had such an artful soul to it. How do you balance trying to make a realistic drawing or painting of something, while at the same time infusing it with your personal creative energy?
That is a very kind thing to say. Thank you! I like the personal challenge of trying to 'capture' something distinctly however it is. And perhaps in doing that, unintentionally I am also infusing it with my own energy, since I am the one perceiving it and putting pencil or paintbrush to paper. I will say in the past, when I am drawing a portrait of say a smiling child, I have found myself smiling when I am drawing the smile, and this is not because I am choosing to, it is what is happening naturally haha. I think we all are embodying that which we are creating a bit. Otherwise, we wouldn't be doing it!
Do you have any favorite food items that you love to draw or paint?
Fruits and vegetables. Leafy things. I really love that intersection of where botanical art meets food art. And then I also love painting and drawing pastry because I used to be a pastry chef, and I still find creating delicious pastry fun, just with pencil and paper rather than with butter and flour. And trees! While they are not food related, I love painting and drawing trees, it is incredibly grounding and reassuring feeling.
There is something meditative about making food, and I think that the same thing goes for an art practice. Do you feel like this too?
ABSOLUTELY!! It is definitely a form of meditation for me. When I work, I am taking apart my subject like a science experiment—breaking it down into shapes and shadow and light and color. Often times, I lose myself in this way of seeing the subject, so a pie is no longer a pie, but a mixture of all of these elements that I am stringing together. It puts me entirely in the current moment, and ideas of what something 'is' is stripped down without any judgement. It is both incredibly hard to stay in this space of open concentration, and also freeing to have no laws or borders on what you are perceiving and instead simply noticing what is. I often find it takes me a few moments to get back into my other environment after being so engrossed in the painting or drawing.
What are you making in the kitchen these days?
Well, my husband and I are creating quite a lot these days with our self enforced social isolation. I've been learning how to make pasta from scratch and perfecting my chocolate chip cookie recipe. We have gotten into making our kitchen a 'restaurant' and serving courses. Also really into quick pickles and particularly quick pickled red onion, its so good on so many things! Also, recently perfected my dirty martini and there isn't a reason to go to another bar again.
Who are some of the artists and food people that you are inspired by?
Oh man so many. Fiona Strickland is a botanical artist from the UK who did incredible watercolor food illustrations for the How to Boil an Egg book by Rose Bakery. It is one of my favorite books for the recipes AND the art.
Traci Page creates food illustrations for NOMA, (talk about dream job) and is incredibly talented.
Samin Nosrat, Claire Ptak, Dorie Greenspan, Melissa Clark, Nigella Lawson, these are just a handful of the inspiring cooks that come to my mind that I adore.
Stella Maria Baer makes beautiful moon and landscape paintings with homemade pigments collected from rocks in the desert.
My friend Christina Balzebre creates the most beautiful and delicious pastries in her bakery in New Orleans, Levee Baking Co.
I know I am forgetting so many, but thats a start.
What do you find intriguing about the intersection of food and art?
That art is just another form of narrative, and food art is a narrative on our current social time and our connection to the land and our families and society. It is a reflection on how we nourish ourselves. It is also a testament to the circle of life and of beauty- everything can be beautiful if made into art, and therefore everything is art.
To support Molly’s work, check out some of the prints available in her shop.
All illustrations by Molly Reeder
Want to learn more about artists working at the intersection of food, art, and land? Check out our Art section.
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