Civitella Ranieri Chasing Work

Chasing Work encompasses the spirit of Civitella Ranieri, the 25-year-old artist residency in Umbria, the “green heart of Italy.” The fellows are visual artists, music composers and writers from all over the world who make the 500-year-old castle their home for six weeks at a time. Their camaraderie, focused work and learning from the local landscape and artistic treasures inspires their creativity.

“Art is one of the most important endeavors in human history, it is the artists of the day who have that task, that responsibility of transmitting to people of the future, information about the age they lived in. All of us as creators: writers, composers, visual artists—we are all doing the same thing. For me—as a travel writer—I want to document the world as it is today…in a particular place, in a particular time.” Noo Saro-Wiwa

Persian Rice with Golden Crust “Tahdig”

Join Katie Berry of Saveur and Domino Magazine. Frances Boswell, food editor and stylist (one of our first food editors at Martha Stewart Living), and Neda Dion, stylist, and decorator, who teaches us her family recipe for Crispy Persian Rice with Saffron. Neda makes it easy and we had such a lovely time hanging out together. Join us.

These videos connect my passion for cooking good healthy food with friends to the old days at Martha Stewart Living when the best part of my job was working with our amazing food editors and meeting home cooks for our entertaining stories. And to the friends who agreed to open their homes and hearts and teach us their favorite recipes—thank you!

Gold & Rust: Unlikely Friends 
Nancy Lorenz and Pamela Talese

The bravery of artists who have developed their language through discipline and mastery of their craft has much to teach us. I have found that artists often use their backgrounds and childhoods to bare witness to their emotional connections with us the viewer. This authenticity helps them discover their unique voice. In this film about the artists Pamela Talese and Nancy Lorenz we learn where they have come from and where they are going. Both inspired by their surroundings, Pamela paints outdoors at the Brooklyn Navy Yard using oils to preserve industrial New York on canvas and Nancy, in her Queens studio, creates nature sketches with the luxurious materials of gold leaf and mother of pearl inlay. Through these artists we experience the visual pleasure of sensuous materials, textures and colors. Both women share their inspirations and creative process with us and reveal how their curiosity and determination propel powerful and individual creative acts.

Helen O’Leary: Rome

Helen O’Leary’s artwork defies traditional structures. As she constructs her paintings, she wants to pin a fragment of her own personal story to a bigger, more epic tale. This video traces her time working as a Visual Arts Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. She describes her intricate process and delights in the sensuality of her materials, her passion for the luminosity of egg tempera and pigment, the insistence of the joinery, and the gender of her painting. She observes, "It's all about experimenting with things I don't even know about yet"

Rosanne Cash: The River and the Thread

Season 2
17:31

This short film traces Rosanne’s latest album The River and the Thread from its genesis to its recording to the road. We see her creative process, witness her emotional connections, and feel the power of her stories.

Civitella Ranieri

Civitella is an artists residency program in the heart of Umbria welcoming artists, writers, and composers from all over the world. The fellows are the heart and soul of Civitella and they talk about why art and imagination is so necessary to us as humans and as part of society, as Azar Nefisi says: “Art gives us new eyes.” The spirit of international fellowship is its lifeblood and the architecture and the grounds are spectacular. This short film celebrates Civitella’s 25 year anniversary. 

American Academy in Rome 2019

Fellows video

Every year the American Academy in Rome gathers a unique community of inspired thinkers and makers. They provide the most precious resources for the scholarly or creative mind: time and space to think and work.

Since 1894, the American Academy in Rome has awarded the Rome Prize to support innovative work in the arts and humanities. Out of nearly 1,000 applicants, 30 American artists and scholars win the Rome Prize each year, making it one of the most competitive fellowships in the country.

American Academy in Rome 2019

Honoree video

As the American Academy in Rome celebrates it’s 125th year, they honor Michael Putnam, Martin Puryear, Jhumpa Lahiri, Jessie Price and The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. These critical thinkers and artists continue to change our view of ourselves as a society and represent the highest ideals of the American Academy in Rome.

Alabama Chanin

Season 1
8:27

Using local cotton, local talent and local traditions, Natalie Chanin has brought Alabama to Haute Couture. Natalie’s story and her artistry is bound up in the landscape and the legends of the region along the Tennessee River.

Maira Kalman

“Who are we? How are we documenting ourselves? Is this a dream? Are we in costume?” In partnership with The Met, MoMA and The Guggenheim, Maira Kalman explores these essential questions through painting, publication and performance.

Elizabeth Eakins

Season 2
7:58

“Living with sheep is a really wonderful experience . . . It is a beautiful piece of music when the light is dropping, you are moving through the grass,  through space with these animals, they know where they are going. They’re teaching us. . .thats what it is really all about” From Elizabeth’s early days in New York as a weaver to her farm in the Flint Hills of Kansas that she shares with her husband Jerry, her handwoven rugs have always been inspired by the colors, textures and rhythms of nature. 

World Monuments Fund 

From China's Forbidden City to the oldest solar observatory in the Americas, World Monuments Fund has built a distinguished record of preserving the world's great cultural heritage and attained a legacy of success at more than 600 sites in 100 countries. This short film celebrates their accomplishments. 

Frank Stella

Stella, the famed American artist, was instrumental in saving Long Island’s A. Conger Goodyear house, one of the most significant houses built in the United States between the two world wars. His activism on behalf of modern buildings also led to the development of World Monuments Fund’s Modernism as Risk initiative, which draws attention to modern sites around the world.

World Monuments Watch

WMF is dedicated to saving the world’s most treasured places. The stories sites tell are universal. The dangers they face are immense. The cultural treasures that have been entrusted to us are under constant attack by time, neglect, natural forces, and human actions. Preserving this heritage has been the overriding mission of the World Monuments Fund for half a century.

Renzo Piano
The Making of a Modern School
Whittle School & Studios

“We want the architecture itself to teach tolerance and collaboration to its students, who will then go out and create a better world”

Education Re-Imagined
Whittle School & Studios

Imagine a network of schools, created by an international consortium of educators, architects, artists, and technologists. The first truly modern school serving children from age three to 18 and the first global one. We want to change for the better the lives of those students who attend and, beyond our own campuses, contribute to the cause of education on every continent.

Education Without Borders
Whittle School & Studios

Language and culture are at the heart of a global perspective. Our students will become global citizens by learning at least one additional language so that they can study and work in another country, and be immersed in another culture.

About Gael Towey & Co.

Gael Towey’s great love is storytelling. “Portraits in Creativity,” a series of short-form documentary videos directed and produced by Towey, seeks to capture the bravery of artists and artisans, and delights in the visual seduction of the creative process. 

The subjects of these films are experienced artists who follow their instincts. Using their knowledge of craft and materials, they investigate, explore and find inspiration. They are comfortable saying, “I don’t know where this will take me.” These videos are not meant to be comprehensive; they tell the story of one moment in these artists’ careers.

In 1990, as Creative Director, Towey helped launch Martha Stewart Living magazine. She designed the inaugural issue, initiating the magazine’s distinct and iconic visual style that would give life to the joy of creativity. She helped spearhead the launch of five additional magazine titles and several product businesses that reflected the changing lifestyles of modern American women. Towey was the visual editor who ensured that consumers, viewers, users and readers had the best possible experiences with digital magazines, apps, and videos. 

Under Towey’s creative direction, Martha Stewart Living won numerous awards in many categories, notably among them, the prestigious American Society of Magazine Editors 

awards for Design, Photography and General Excellence, the AIGA Corporate Leadership Award, and the Chrysler Design Award  in 1999. Her work was in the Cooper Hewitt National Design Triennial Exhibition for product and packaging design in 2000. Martha Stewart Living: Boundless Beauty stop action cover was named one of the top ten magazine covers of 2010 by Time Magazine. Towey and her teams of designers have also won numerous SPD and Art Directors Club awards. Most recently, Towey was awarded the AIGA medal in 2014.

After 22 years at the creative helm of the company, Towey stepped away in order to pursue her long-standing interest in narrative, creating her new company, Gael Towey & Co. to translate her experience as a creative director and editor into moving video profiles, which capture an artist’s voice as they tell their story.

Towey works with small teams to produce and direct these short-form documentary videos. Her goal is to find clients who would like to work with her to create videos that explore these themes. She explains, “Portraits in Creativity serves as a snapshot of my interests and the direction I would like to take in my work. I hope to find collaborators who want to grow the creative engagement of their brands and platforms with videos like those in this series.”