Can you share a bit about your background and how it influences your support for women? What challenges have you faced personally that have shaped your approach to supporting other women?

I was lucky to be raised (in Berkeley, CA) around many women in my family and community who served as models - women who were pursuing serious intellectual and creative lives in many different fields. This included my mother, who was a dancer, choreographer, and movement analyst with many ambitions. She struggled throughout my life to gain purchase in her career goals, however. Part of that struggle certainly came from her devotion and responsibilities as a mother, and part was due to a mental illness that slowly but surely took over her life. I still carry with me the pain she felt in failing to get her brilliant ideas and creative impulses across to a bigger audience or to build upon them to help more people. As I became a parent myself, I saw echoes of this in my own life.

Who are the women who have inspired you on your journey of uplifting others?

I'm going to punt on this question to some degree, as I don't feel like a genuine answer would be to hold up an individual as a particular inspiration, though several come to mind. Instead, I would say my biggest inspiration is many, many women who I've encountered as mentors, peers, and friends over the course of my life who collectively provide solutions to how to live in fulfilling and meaningful ways despite the ways that women in particular can be held back. As I've rolled out the programming at Interlude, it has been particularly gratifying and inspiring to watch the way that each and every mother artist we serve is inventing her own strategy, as she goes, to make her work, support her family, and model a creative life for her children.

What initiatives or projects are you currently involved in to support women in your community?

Artists who are parents, particularly mothers, are systematically and culturally excluded from opportunities for career advancement. I continue to experience this firsthand as an artist and mother of three. This led me to found Interlude Artist Residency, a nonprofit in the Hudson Valley designed exclusively for artists who are caregivers. Residencies are a key building block for artists, who operate without the standard paths for advancement found in other fields. Almost all Residencies are closed to parents, who cannot leave their children for extended time to focus on their work. Interlude provides fully funded and nurturing experiences for parent artists where they are afforded creative support, high quality feedback, networking opportunities, and more.

How do you navigate societal expectations and stereotypes while advocating for women's empowerment?

Far beyond the arts, women everywhere experience the feedback from a larger culture that there is a binary choice to be made about nurturing your children or a career. We are left with the feeling that we are failing in either, or in both. The primary solution is for all of us to find structural solutions to support women in the fullness of their lives. Other solutions are to make space for community, so women don't feel alone in these struggles.

What impact have your efforts had on the lives of the women you have supported?

I get letters monthly from the mother artists we support at Interlude. These are filled with gratitude for the ways in which they felt held and supported both as caregivers and as artists. This has a reverberating effect on them moving forward in their careers, and provides tremendous momentum for many of them. It also inspires them to see the antidote to the isolation many artists feel throughout their careers is to reach out, find successes not by a sense of scarcity and competition, but through community and mutual support.

How can others best support your efforts?

Interlude is a non profit that operates on a modest budget. We are always looking for support from individuals and organizations who align with our mission to build a more sustainable and equitable art world. As we have a limited reach in how many artists we can support yearly, we are also continually looking for ways to amplify our work. That includes gathering data on best practices to share with other organizations and institutions who might want to be more inclusive to artists who are caregivers, or opening up our programming to larger communities locally in the Hudson Valley, in New York City, and all over the world. We also would love to spread the word about what we do with a larger audience. Donations are welcome, as are opportunities to share our work through media exposure, or with organizations who want to learn more about what we do. Please visit our website for more, and thank you!

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@interluderesidency

This article is part of our International Women's Day series. Read about other inspiring women:

From Teen Mom to Trailblazer: Meet Samora

Uplifting Women Through Activism and Empowerment: Meet Natasha

Breaking Barriers as a Female Firefighter: Meet Mindee

Breaking Barriers and Empowering Women: Meet Roshni