NEW YORK, NY – Last night New York Women in Film & Television (NYWIFT), the 17th Annual Designing Women Awards Gala. The beloved event co-presented by Variety, recognizes the powerful transformations, characters and stories that backstage design teams and talent create and oversee. Designing Women’s spirited festivities bring together actors, producers, directors, writers, designers and fashion and beauty influencers, among other notable attendees, to honor the creative genius of women in the industry including renowned makeup artists, hair stylists and costume designers in film and television.
The awards presentation is always fantastic with honorees being applauded by presenters who are co-workers and friends of those nominated.
2016’s Designing Women honorees include three of the most talented female artists behind-the-scenes; among them are: Makeup Artist Anita Gibson (“Confirmation,” “Power,” “Madea’s Big Happy Family”); Hair Stylist Rose Chatterton (“The Good Wife,” “Shades of Blue,” “It’s Complicated”) and Costume Designer Sarah Edwards (“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” “Michael Clayton”)
Actor and Producer Ray Liotta, who currently stars in NBC’s “Shades of Blue” with Jennifer Lopez, presented the award to Rose Chatterton. Golden Globe Award winning Actress Maura Tierney gave Variety’s Ensemble Award to the makeup, hair and costume design teams of the much heralded Showtime series “The Affair.” And Will Arnett also presented.
“Congratulations to the other nominees. When Terry Lawler put a call in to me that NYWIFT was going to honor me I was shocked and couldn’t believe it,” stated Gibson while accepting her award. “I was humbled by that news. I was humbled that I was going to be recognized for my creative contribution to film and television. I thank everyone from NYWIFT for the tireless work you have done for this great event.”
“It is so essential to devote an evening to commemorating all of the work these women do for each other and for our industry, helping to bring rich characters and stories to audiences around the world,” says New York Women in Film & Television Executive Director Terry Lawler. “Our annual spring Designing Women event is always a lively celebration and gathering. It is just one of the myriad ways we support our female colleagues and mission.”
The lovely reception at the end of the evening at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York gave guests a special opportunity to recognize and appreciate the depth and breadth of the work these too-often unsung heroines do for their colleagues and the entertainment business every day.
Past Designing Women honorees have included designers and artists from highly acclaimed TV shows, including “Mad Men,” “The Good Wife” and “Orange Is the New Black,” and from films such as “Midnight Cowboy,” “Titanic,” “The Devil Wears Prada,” “Moonrise Kingdom” and “Chicago” — just to name a few.
Proceeds benefit the non-profit educational programs New York Women in Film & Television offers all year long. For more information please visit www.nywift.org.
PHOTO – Alexis Alexanian, Jessica Kirson, Anita Gibson, Lela Loren, Ray Liotta, Rose Chatterton, Sarah Edwards, Will Arnett, Maura Tierney, Caroline Duncan, Diana Sikes, Sheri Kornhaber attend the 2016 New York Women In Film & Television’s Designing Women Gala at CUNY Graduate Center on June 13, 2016 in New York City. (Getty)
Art
The Disney Revolt: The Great Labor War of Animation’s Golden Age

In the summer of 1941, Walt Disney’s top animator led hundreds of Disney artists out on strike, nearly breaking the studio. This is the true story of those two creative geniuses, plus a corrupt advisor and a mafia gangster, who collided to cause the greatest battle in Hollywood history.
An essential piece of Disney history has been unreported for eighty years.
Soon after the birth of Mickey Mouse, one animator raised the Disney Studio far beyond Walt’s expectations. That animator also led a union war that almost destroyed it. Art Babbitt animated for the Disney studio throughout the 1930s and through 1941, years in which he and Walt were jointly driven to elevate animation as an art form, up through Snow White, Pinocchio, and Fantasia.
But as America prepared for World War II, labor unions spread across Hollywood. Disney fought the unions while Babbitt embraced them. Soon, angry Disney cartoon characters graced picket signs as hundreds of animation artists went out on strike. Adding fuel to the fire was Willie Bioff, one of Al Capone’s wise guys who was seizing control of Hollywood workers and vied for the animators’ union.
Using never-before-seen research from previously lost records, including conversation transcriptions from within the studio walls, author and historian Jake S. Friedman reveals the details behind the labor dispute that changed animation and Hollywood forever.
Join a book talk with the author Jake S. Friedman on March 21 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm, at The Lambs, 3 West 51st, 5th floor. RSVP@The-Lambs.org. The book will be available to be purchased and signed by the author.
Jake S. Friedman is a New York–based writer, teacher, and artist. He is a longtime contributor to Animation Magazine, and has also written for American History Magazine, The Huffington Post, Animation World Network, Animation Mentor, and The Philadelphia Daily News. For ten years he was an animation artist for films and television as seen on Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, and Saturday Night Live. He currently teaches History of Animation at the Fashion Institute of Technology and at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. The rest of his time he specializes in mental health for the creative psyche.
The moderator will be honorary Lamb Foster Hirsch, a professor film at Brooklyn College and the author of 16 books on film and theater, including The Dark Side of the Screen:Film Noir, A Method to Their Madness: The History of the Actors Studio, and Kurt Weill on Stage: From Berlin to Broadway.
The Cole will be Magda Katz.
More about the book here.
Art
April’s Midnight Moment A New Nature

Integrating gaming and surveillance aesthetics with both animations and footage of the Rocky Mountain region, Dorf collapses the barriers of what’s real in a way that echoes our digital consumption of the world. A mass of living tree roots is scanned and imposed over a simulated ocean; a mountain range is represented as a topographical blueprint. Even the filmed footage, captured at the field research station of the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, is manipulated with compositing techniques and color treatment. As Dorf explains, “The more we create simulations of landscapes or nature, the more we expect nature to be and perform as the simulation that we’ve already made.”
This unique edit of the work was crafted specifically to mirror the brisk pacing of the plazas and billboards in Times Square. As the video progresses, the pace increases, emphasizing the influence of our technological lives on the way “Nature” is understood and perceived.
“The presentation of A New Nature in Times Square is an extension of the concepts in the work itself. Nestled within the endless motion and electrical currents flowing through the glowing canyons of Times Square, the moving images harmonize with their surroundings and enact their post-natural position.”
— Mark Dorf
April’s Midnight Moment is presented in partnership with Public Works Administration in conjunction with Dorf’s solo exhibition there from April 1–30, 2023, which includes the full length version of A New Nature.
Dorf would like to thank the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, and Dr. Paul CaraDonna and Dr. Amy Iler for their continued support in bringing together the arts and sciences.
Mark Dorf is a New York based artist whose practice utilizes photography, video, digital media, and sculpture. Often working directly with ecologists and technologists in the production of his works, Dorf is influenced by human’s perceptions of and interactions with what we call “Nature”, urbanism, design, and virtual environments. As opposed to seeing these subjects as categorically separate, Dorf reveals their entanglement and integration with one another as an inclusive and lively planetary ecology. Being both self-aware and critical of their own means of production, Dorf’s works craft a vision of an ecological future that navigates away from environmental collapse in the Anthropocene and imagine a “New Nature.”
Public Works Administration (“PWA”) is a digital art project space located in the 50th Street subway in Times Square. They spotlight underground artists who use digital tools to drive culture forward.
Art
Death Is Not the End Opens March 17 At The Rubin Museum

Join on Friday, March 17, from 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM to celebrate the opening of The Rubim Museum newest exhibition, Death Is Not the End. The cross-cultural exhibition explores ideas of death and afterlife in the art of Tibetan Buddhism and Christianity with artworks spanning 12 centuries from the Rubin Museum collection alongside artworks on loan from private collections and major institutions. Enjoy free admission, tours, music from DJ Roshni Samlal, drinks and dancing in the K2 lounge, temporary tattoos, and the launch of the 2023 Spiral issue, which explores moments of change that propel us into the unknown. Members will also receive two free drink tickets and access to the exclusive member section. Come explore what #LifeAfter means to you and toast the new exhibition! Reserve your free tickets today.
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