Artist Profile: Madge Stein
A conversation with Bay Area food design artist Madge Stein
WRITER Flora Tsapovsky
Food artist Madge Stein. Image courtesy of artist.
“What a rich and layered word,” says artist Madge Stein on abundance, the central theme of our Fall 2025 issue. ”It can mean privilege, the reward of hard work, or the feeling of being surrounded and supported by friends and family. It can mean that your apricot tree just dropped all its fruit and you need to invite all your neighbors over to make use of it, and you end up meeting people you never would have otherwise.”
This thoughtful and layered approach is at the center of Stein’s work, which might be a bit difficult to describe, but screams abundance at you once you spot it. A visual-meets-food artist and a caterer, Stein brings imagination and figurative creativity to everything they do. It can be an installation marrying ubiquitous fennel flowers and obscure snacks incorporating their fronds - that was Bloom to Decay, a one-day event she co-conspired with several Bay Area florists and photographers back in June. Or a private event that delights guests with unexpected presentations of canapes, fruit, and cake, or stunning and textured food and nature-themed photography.
Madge Stein’s food art installation. Image from artist’s website.
The latter will be on full display this month when a colorful calendar Stein had participated in creating, as part of No Crumbs Collective, will go on sale. The calendar features local businesses and tastemakers, and its sales will benefit Centro Legal de la Raza.
Stein, who specializes in food styling in all of its manifestations, was born in the Bay Area and moved to Australia with their mum at the age of 8. “When I came back to visit [the Bay] in my mid-20s, I really fell in love with the abundant food and farm scene,” they say. “I’d never seen such a cornucopia of local produce and farm goods, and people really pushing alternative models of growing and serving food.” Needless to say, soon Stein started calling it home again.
Whatever they do, they prefer to collaborate. “I love the sense of community and commitment there is in the creative scene here,” Stein says. “We are committed to the Bay as our home, and we are committed to lifting each other up so we can all thrive and continue to make art. It feels like a very collaborative community.” Another constant in Stein’s work? A thoughtful approach. “I would describe my creative process as elemental—focusing on one color, one plant, one season, one mood, one song, whatever the prompt is. I like to immerse myself in it,” they say. Stein usually makes a playlist that helps them find the right mood: “Music is always a catalyst for my creativity, regardless of the medium I’m working with,” they say.
Stein’s design style varies from project to project, but there are always some through-lines—natural materials and fabrics, the food aspect. “My work has been described as romantic,” they say. “There’s something really transporting about being able to actually consume something that feels like it’s from another time or place.”
The No Crumbs Collective 2026 calendar is now on sale at Tangerine Prop Shop’s website.