A collective of art workers—artists, a gallerist, a communication strategist, a consultant, and a publisher—joined forces to offer their community much-needed childcare support.
Since 2024, this nonprofit has been tackling one of the art world’s biggest blind spots: supporting working mothers. Artists & Mothers offers grants for nine months of childcare to New York-based artists with children under 3.
What’s one work of art that got you through an important moment in your life?
Julia Trotta (co-founder): Mon fils, a performance by Lea Lublin from 1968, where the artist cared for her 7-month-old son, Nicolas, as a conceptual and political gesture in the context of an exhibition at Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
Name an influence of yours that might surprise people.
Elizabeth Karp-Evans (board member): “I’m constantly inspired by women who make space for others to create, collaborate, and evolve in. It’s a courageous act to support individuals who are interrogating the structure of society through their art. Thelma Golden and the late, brilliant Koyo Kouoh, both extraordinary curators, have an outsized influence on my own work and practice at the moment.”
What do you think is your biggest contribution to culture?
Camille Henrot (board member): “We’re bringing the issues and needs of artist parents into a mainstream art world conversation, where in the past it’s been a very siloed subject.”
What’s something people get wrong about you?
Sarah Goulet (board member): “That we’re a mommy club.”
What do you want to see more of in your industry? Less of?
Maria De Victoria (co-founder): “I want an art world rooted in care, equity, and shared power, where gatekeeping and precarity are dismantled, support is tangible, and everyone feels they belong.”
What’s been the hardest part of your career so far?
Maia Ruth Lee (board member): “To balance everything—to put care in everything that I do, but without losing sight of everything else that is happening in the world.”
