A Life Creative Podcast

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

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 drawn to their signature mix of modern and heritage, and their talent for delivering the unexpected.
In this episode, Melañio draws out the origin stories behind that sensibility. Cy grew up on ranchland in the Texas Panhandle; Genevieve in New England, where her great-great-grandfather was the renowned architect, Stanford White. Two very different worlds — yet both formative, and both alive in their work. The Carters describe their approach as anthropological: a deep reading of who a client is, where they've been, and who they're becoming.
Carter Design's clients often arrive at a particular moment — a life in transition, a new chapter opening while the last one still deserves honoring. Knowing how to hold both at once, the new and the cherished, turns out to be their quiet superpower.
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 Cy & Genevieve and links to their sites:
www.alifecreativepod.com
alifecreative.Substack.com
@alifecreative on Instagram
alifecreative on YouTube