A Life Creative Podcast

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 stylist" was even a career.
Before leaving the UK for New York City, Martin worked for Elle Decor and was recruited to produce interior design stories for Tyler Brûlé's influential new magazine Wallpaper*. A friend in New York eventually convinced him to visit, and he soon found himself picking up freelance styling work. He's been in the U.S. for more than 20 years now, with a home in upstate New York where he pursues his other great passion: gardening.
During the COVID era, the pressure to reinvent was felt across the creative community — how to keep making work under the constraints of home confinement became the central challenge. For Martin, this led to a collaboration with photographer (and upstate neighbor) Patricia Heal.  Together they experimented with creating still life images, even producing stories shot inside a chicken coop. That inventive spirit carried forward into something unexpected: the backdrops and vessels he created have since evolved into textile and ceramic product lines.
It's a life lived in perpetual creative motion — experimenting, collaborating, and making beautiful things almost as a byproduct of simply following curiosity wherever it leads. 
This episode is supported by Aura House, cold-air diffused home fragrances.  Visit them and use creative10 for 10% off your purchase.
For more on Martin please visit:
www.alifecreativepod.com
alifecreative.Substack.com
@alifecreative on Instagram
alifecreative on YouTube

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 do freelance design work landing clients like Takashimaya under the corporate name ‘Design MW’ which she co-founded with her former husband JP Williams.
Eventually, she and JP co-founded WMS&Co. an online retailer of artfully curated home office products.  She recounts how it all started, the lessons she learned along the way, and how she manages art and commerce successfully.
This episode is supported by Aura House, cold-air diffused home fragrances.  Visit them and use creative10 for 10% off your purchase.
For more on Allison please visit:
www.alifecreativepod.com
alifecreative.Substack.com
@alifecreative on Instagram
alifecreative on YouTube

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 to only to find them changed.
Cheryl and host Melanio Gomez crossed paths early in their careers at Martha Stewart Living, Cheryl's first job after graduating from RISD. She has since earned an MFA from Pratt Institute and held residencies at Smack Mellon in Brooklyn and the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (EFA) in New York City, where she maintains a studio today. Her work has been exhibited across the country, including at the University of Arizona and the Islip Art Museum, and she has completed public art commissions for the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (a permanent ceramic tile installation at PS19Q in Queens) and for Los Angeles County. She also curates exhibitions through her curatorial project, Cheryl Molnar Projects.
A few months ago, Melanio reconnected with Cheryl at C24 Gallery in New York City — which represents her — on the occasion of her solo exhibition The Overview. There Cheryl gave a talk about her work and inspirations, offering a window into the reconstructed landscapes and layered memories at the heart of her practice.
On today's episode Cheryl shares the path that led her from making Barbie doll clothes as a child to being a full-time artist with an incredible body of work. 
This episode is supported by Aura House, cold-air diffused home fragrances.  Visit them and use creative10 for 10% off your purchase.
For more on Cheryl please visit:
www.alifecreativepod.com
alifecreative.Substack.com
@alifecreative on Instagram
alifecreative on YouTube

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 Maggie Gyllenhaal.
Over those years he cultivated a second passion: cooking. Rooted in childhood hours spent in the kitchen with his mother and grandmother, cooking was never just about getting food on the table — it was a way of sustaining meaning, connection, and heritage in everyday life. He has written food stories for Saveur, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, and other publications, and in 2025 authored his first cookbook, Family Style (Harvest/HarperCollins). The recipes were inspired in part by a remarkable discovery made in his grandmother's apartment after she passed away.
This episode is supported by Aura House, cold-air diffused home fragrances.  Visit them and use creative10 for 10% off your purchase.
For more about Peter and links to his work:
www.alifecreativepod.com
alifecreative.Substack.com
@alifecreative on Instagram
alifecreative on YouTube

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 in college, he headed to New York to work in the studio of legendary designer John Saladino. He also spent time as a model with Click Model Management — a chapter that funded extended travel through Europe and deepened his eye for history, craft, and beauty.
McAlpine eventually drew him back with an offer to build out the firm's interiors practice, and Ray has been shaping some of America's most thoughtful homes ever since. He's published two books: Evocative Interiors (2018) and The Expressive Home (2025).
In this conversation, Ray shares a design philosophy rooted not in aesthetics but in emotion — he sees homes as emotional vessels, containers for the full breadth of human experience. Beauty, he'll tell you, is the byproduct of creating a soulful home.
Host Melañio Gomez has known Ray since the early '90s, when both were just beginning their careers and adult lives.
This episode is supported by Aura House, cold-air diffused home fragrances.  Visit them and use creative10 for 10% off your purchase.

For more about Ray and links to his work:
www.alifecreativepod.com
alifecreative.Substack.com
@alifecreative on Instagram
alifecreative on YouTube