The Inaugural Artists Mothers Gala Took Place During the Family-friendly Window of 3 to 6 P.M.
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On Sunday afternoon, a thoroughly modern approach to parenthood and child-like wonder both came out to play at the first-ever Artists Mothers Gala. The invite even came with an instruction to wear whatever you please, as opposed to a traditional formal dress code—much to everyone’s delight.
The non-profit was launched a little over a year ago in a bid to help artists achieve balance between their professional and personal lives. Held at the WSA building downtown, the event raised funds towards nine month-long $25,000 grants to apply towards childcare for toddlers aged three and below. “This felt like a way to start quickly—to be grassroots, to mobilize our network, and put it right back into the mission, which is to support artists with childcare,” co-founder Julia Trotta told Vogue. “We didn’t even know if we’d be able to fund one grant, and in the first year, we funded four.”
Indeed, though Artists Mothers is in its infancy, the collective force of its board and host committee—which includes Chloë Sevigny—drew a supportive crowd. During the afternoon, kids and their parents indulged in creative and colorful activities. There was an ivy-covered backdrop by Farah Al Qasimi for sweet family photos, a lounge filled with beanbags by artist Maia Ruth Lee and videos by Aki Goto, and a massive tile-covered installation by Ei Arakawa prompting everyone to “please draw freely”—which many did, creating a colorful collage filled with jungle animals, mermaids, and modernist scribbles. An on-site gift shop also held delights sure to keep a smile on faces after home-time, including graphic Gauchere T-shirts, beanies, tote bags, and nylon patchwork dolls by Abby Lloyd.
Régime des Fleurs perfumer Alia Raza, whose travel-sized fragrances everyone received as a parting gift alongside handprint-shaped sugar cookies, felt impassioned by the non-profit’s goal. “There’s still this [unspoken] choice for women which is, ‘do you want to have a full-throttle career, or do you want to be a mom?’ In New York, many women do both—but in the rest of the country and the rest of the world, a lot of women still feel like it’s something they have to choose between. If you do choose to do both, it’s really hard. I hope that when I’m a parent, there will be organizations like this around that will help.”
As for that optional dress code? Its freedom allowed guests including Rama Duwaji, Liana Satenstein, Legacy Russell, Rachel Chandler, and Camille Henrot to prioritize individuality. The resulting mix was a scene that felt cool yet easygoing, with no shortage of wide-legged jeans, maxi skirts, and colorful knits paired with chunky boots, sneakers, and convenient crossbody bags that ranged from Adidas and Acne to Stella McCartney and Staud.
Plenty of snacks were on-hand to keep everyone in good spirits, thanks to SoHo’s Happier Grocer, as well as alcohol-free bubbly by French Bloom. A changing lounge was overseen by Coterie and high chairs were brought in by Cybe—the event producers, Souvenir Shop, had evidently thought of everything. Additional cheer came via DJ Cardamami’s bubble-filled finale dance party, as well as various performances by Sophie Becker, Zeena Parkins, 2025 grant recipient Cecilia Lopez, and Lizzi Bougatsos and Sadie Laska, with special guest, cellist Alexander Reed Fleming, a junior at LaGuardia High School.
For the time being, Artists Mothers is aiming to support its recipients with the funds they need to make things more manageable between home and the workplace. In the future, as it grows, the organization hopes to build out its staff, form a longstanding endowment, and extend its scope to more parents around the world with a wider age range of children. Carissa Rodriguez, a 2024 grant recipient, said: “I would love for this organization and the artists to collectively get involved in organizing and strategizing to get behind a proposal, so that everyone in New York City with a child under five gets public support,” she said. “This should be something that everyone has access to.”
Photo by: Alicia Mersy1/18Coco Baudelle
Photo by: Janna Tew2/18Liana Satenstein
