Gail Ward | Founder. Producer. Artist.
Trinidadian-born Gail Ward is no stranger to change and taking risks. She takes a “novel" approach to life, art and work. “My parents always said that life should read like a novel…no one wants to read just one chapter…make it interesting!”
A Creative Life in Chapters
I grew up with a philosophy that has followed me throughout my life.
My parents always told my sister, my brother, and me:
Nothing you do, see or learn is ever wasted.
They also believed that nobody wants to read a book with only one chapter. Make your life an interesting book. Apparently, I took them seriously.
My creative life has moved through many chapters—dancer, choreographer, music executive, artist developer, producer, storyteller, photographer, painter, writer, strategist and consultant. For a long time, I found it difficult to explain how all those pieces fit together. Now I understand that the pieces are the point.
I began with movement. Training at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center and working as a dancer and choreographer taught me to understand story through emotion, rhythm, space and the body. Music became another language. My work in A&R and artist development at Sony Music/Epic Records brought me inside the process of helping artists discover and develop their voices. Production and touring taught me something else: how to protect the creative vision while navigating all of the practical things required to bring that vision into the world.
Those experiences eventually carried me into increasingly complex productions and live events, and later into children's and educational media at Scholastic. Each environment looked different from the one before it, but I kept discovering that I was doing some version of the same thing: listening, seeing connections, finding the heart of an idea, bringing people together, and figuring out how to make something meaningful, real.
From Little Red Hen to Scarlet Ibis
My original company was called Little Red Hen Productions, inspired by the story of the little hen who, when nobody else would help, simply did everything herself. And I did. I built. I solved. I produced. I figured things out.
Until my mother wisely pointed out that perhaps doing everything myself wasn't something I needed to keep proving. It was time to expand. To find my flock and to fly with people who shared a desire to create work with meaning.
Little Red Hen Productions became Scarlet Ibis Studios. That evolution continues to shape the way I work today. Scarlet Ibis is a home for creative strategy, producing, consulting, collaboration—and for the original stories and artwork I am bringing into the world myself. I don't believe creativity lives neatly inside categories. My paintings inform my storytelling. Photography changes the way I see composition. Dance lives in the way I understand rhythm. Producing taught me structure. Music taught me to listen. Working with children reminded me of the importance of wonder.
Nothing is wasted. Every chapter comes with me into the next.
And perhaps that's the best way to describe what I bring to a project today. Not one discipline or one job title, but a lifetime of different ways of seeing—and the ability to bring those perspectives together in service of an idea worth creating.
Create from feeling. Refine with intention. Let meaning lead.
Let's Connect
I'm always looking for new and exciting collaborations and opportunities.