A Life Creative Podcast

Imagine being asked to freshen up the rooftop garden of House & Garden magazine’s editor-in-chief, Dominique Browning , for a photo shoot. For this episode’s guest — author and editor Stephen Orr — that one encounter led to a job as the magazine’s garden editor. Stephen tells the story of his upbringing in West Texas, where his parents sparked an early appreciation for nature and plants. He sh...

How does an art history major and auto-didact maker become one of the country’s most sought-after “celebration experts” — and one of Martha Stewart’ s creative right hands for more than 25 years? Darcy Miller joins us to tell the story. From her very first job — hired by legendary creative director Gael Towey in the scrappy, pre-magazine, roll-up-your-sleeves days at Martha Stewart — to becoming E...

Liz Callaway is an Emmy Award winning, Grammy and Tony nominated singer and actress with a long resume in performing arts. Her Broadway debut happened in her early 20's with the first run of Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along .  She went on to perform in Cats, Baby , and Miss Saigon on Broadway and has recorded (and self-produced!) numerous albums in various music genres.  She has...

Prop stylist, gardener, ceramicist, textile designer — these are just some of the many hats Martin Bourne wears in his creative life. In this episode he shares the story of his upbringing in bucolic Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom, how he complemented a natural talent for design with various academic pursuits, and how he stumbled into his first styling jobs — not yet knowing that "prop st...

In the small world of the New York City creator community show host Melanio Gomez worked at Martha Stewart Living with the sister-in-law of this week’s guest, Allison Williams . Allison is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) who went on to build successful creative businesses.  Initially she worked for several years as a graphic designer for Carbone Smolan design firm.  She left to...

Cheryl Molnar is a New York-based artist whose intricately layered collages — composed of paint-stained paper, photographs, and architectural drawings mounted on natural birch panels — reconstruct familiar landscapes into evocative, utopian worlds. Her work examines the tension between the natural environment and human development, exploring themes of memory, social class, and the places we return...

Peter Som joins host Melanio Gomez to share the story of how he became a New York City-based fashion designer. After early stints at Calvin Klein and Michael Kors , he pursued his dream of creating his own label — spending nearly 15 years producing collections shown on Fashion Week runways, sold at Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus, and worn by Michelle Obama, Beyoncé, Scarlett Johansson, and Mag...

Ray Booth grew up in Huntsville, Alabama, studied architecture at Auburn, and today divides his time between Nashville, New York City, and Provincetown, Massachusetts — a life as layered as the interiors he creates. Ray's path to becoming a partner at McAlpine, the celebrated architecture and interiors firm founded by Bobby McAlpine , wasn't a straight line. After interning with the firm...

Melañio Gomez , host of A Life Creative, first encountered Cy and Genevieve Carter while on assignment for Martha Stewart Living — and it's easy to see why they made an impression. After honing their craft at the celebrated Los Angeles design collective Commune Design , this married duo founded Carter Design , building a devoted following among actors, artists, and creative professionals draw...

A Life Creative went on location for the first time, and it was worth the trip. We recorded this episode at Star Bright Farm in Baltimore County, Maryland — home to Helen Norman , an accomplished fashion, food, and lifestyle photographer whose career took her from New York City and beyond, all while keeping her roots firmly in rural Maryland life. Helen and her son Peter Elmore have built somethin...

Frances Boswell tells the story of her life in food, from working as a 'chopper' in a local restaurant as a teen, to editing food stories for Martha Stewart Living and Real Simple Magazine and everything in between.  Her creative interests are informed by her many interesting life experiences including a stint helping prepare mountain climber food at Mt. Everest base camp.  She talks abo...

Rafé Totengco grew up in the Philippines, where having clothing made was — and continues to be — a common practice. As a kid, his mom would send him to the tailor, who'd ask, "Okay, what do you want me to make?" That open question sparked Rafé's imagination in a way that led him to launch his own apparel business when he was still a teenager. When his sister moved to New York C...

Frances Palmer's path to creating her own pottery studio and cultivating a fabulous flower garden comes down to focus and dedication.  She put the time in to learn and develop her craft with an eye toward building a sustainable business where her work is not just a collection of beautiful objects but also usable in everyday life. Show host Melanio Gomez was made aware of her work years ago wh...

What does it take to turn an author's vision into a bestselling book? Book editor Ellen Morrissey has done it more than ten times over. After 16 years at Martha Stewart Living — where she shepherded dozens of books to publication, with more than 10 landing on the New York Times bestseller list — Ellen has built a thriving post-Martha career helping authors of illustrated lifestyle books reali...

A divorce and the pandemic aren't the events most people credit for their creative breakthrough — but for collage artist James Gallagher , they were turning points. In this episode of A Life Creative , host Melañio Gomez sits down with James — introduced through James' wife, prop stylist Pam Morris — to trace a winding path to full-time artistry. James spent years inside and outside the...

David Weeks is a Rhode Island School of Design graduate who is recognized for his iconic lighting designs crafted in his Brooklyn studio.  Post college he made his way to New York City and did what many artists do: freelance and say 'yes' to just about everything.  He eventually landed a position in the studio of acclaimed jewelry designer Ted Muehling who modeled a standard of excellenc...

Followers of A Life Creative podcast may recall that host Melañio Gomez lived in Brussels, Belgium for 10 years.  During that time he met today's guest— Clinton Stringer —who is an accomplished contemporary dancer, having danced for 8 years with Rosas , a dance company founded in the 1980's by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker . Clinton now works as a rehearsal director with Rosas and is often...

Born in Cuba and raised in Miami, JC Garcia-Lavin came of age as part of the city’s vibrant art scene before building a successful career as an interior stylist, working with brands like CB2, Williams Sonoma Home, West Elm, Crate & Barrel, and Pottery Barn. His editorial work has appeared in Elle Decor and Condé Nast Traveler .  Host Melañio Gomez first knew JC by reputation before the two met...

Lucky for us at A Life Creative podcast our friend Stephen Kent Johnson --who photographs interiors for the likes of Architectural Digest--introduced us to Wendy Goodman -- who writes the Design Hunting column for New York magazine and the Great Rooms content for Curbed (both part of Vox Media).  Her features give readers a wonderfully astute peek into the homes and lives of a cross-section of New...

Sharon Gresh is the co-founder of Standard Issue, a multi-disciplinary design consultancy, founded in 2005 with her husband, designer Michael McGinn .   Sharon and I worked together early on in my career, and she's been a mentor and friend for decades.  In this episode we talk about her life growing up in Coney Island, how she discovered a path to channel her artistic abilities, and after att...

Show Notes:  The Easy Bake Oven (cooking with a lightbulb!) featured prominently in food content creator Tara Bench’s early years, like it did for many of us.  But Tara took that early passion many steps further, cultivating a career in food that spans books, blogs, TV, and magazines.   Her internship at Martha Stewart Living turned into a full time Food Editor and Food Stylist job where she learn...

Eddie Ross is a designer and author known for his resourceful, layered approach to interiors and entertaining. Raised in Greenwich, Connecticut, he developed an early appreciation for well-designed homes and, on the advice of Martha Stewart , attended the Culinary Institute of America.  Before launching his own studio, Ross built a substantial editorial career, serving as a design, decorating, and...

Rob Wilson is a designer and illustrator who switched paths mid-career.  After working for more than 20 years at a Dallas design firm he founded his own practice.  He has a long-established habit of sketching in little Muji notebooks, and those illustrations have become the source material for numerous projects including greeting cards, prints, and work that he’s produced for clients like the men’...

Karen Robert founded Aux Abris , a wallpaper design and manufacturing company, in 2015.  The lead up to this chapter in her professional design career started when she was just 17 years old and discovered by a modeling agency in her hometown of Seattle WA.  From there she worked in the fashion capitals of Europe and along the way, as a keen observer of architecture and interiors, she built up a me...

Michael Boodro and Kate Betts came of age in magazine publishing’s pre-millennium heyday, meeting at Vogue in the 1990s while working for Anna Wintour during her early years at the helm. Kate spent her formative career years in Paris, working out of the bureau of Women's Wear Daily , while Michael began his career in the publicity department at the Museum of Modern Art —and, in a very New Yor...