Care and creativity are often treated as competing demands. For many women artists, they are inseparable.
Motherhood, caregiving, and creative work all require time, imagination, and emotional energy. Yet the systems that support artists have rarely been designed with caregiving in mind. That’s why Women Moving Millions members are investing in organizations that recognize care itself as part of the creative ecosystem.
From giving artist-mothers the time to create through childcare at Artists & Mothers, to connecting older adults through storytelling at Life Story Club, creating a sanctuary for families to experience art in Washington Heights, and offering artists the restorative time and space to create at Omega Institute, these grants recognize the human needs that make creative lives possible.
Nowhere is the tension between care and creativity more immediate than in the early years of raising children, when women artists can face a stark choice: pause a creative practice or sacrifice the care that families need. Artists & Mothers supports emerging and mid-career artists at a critical point in their careers, when the demands and cost of raising young children can make it difficult to sustain the momentum they have built.
Through grants and advocacy, the organization is addressing a structural barrier that has long shaped who is able to remain in the arts and under what conditions. A grant from WMM member Dana Su Lee will fund nine months of childcare for a New York City artist with a child under three, creating something every artist needs but few mothers can afford: uninterrupted time to create.
Grants from WMM members Holly Fogel and Lenore Davis expand that idea beyond the individual artist. They are investing in the Early Childhood and Family Hub of Washington Heights, a deeply creative immigrant community where art is a source of connection, healing, and belonging. The Hub is transforming the Fort Washington Collegiate Church, a historic sanctuary and neighborhood gathering place for more than a century, into a community stage for local women artists and families.
In that space, women artists, many of them mothers and caregivers, will have opportunities to teach, perform, and share their work, while families gain access to creative experiences in a place they already know and trust. Creative workshops and trauma-informed programming will support mothers and caregivers navigating migration, domestic violence, and isolation, while making the arts a visible and accessible part of everyday community life.
When artists are supported as caregivers, they keep creating. When communities create spaces rooted in care, more artists emerge. Caring for the people who make art may be one of the most powerful ways to ensure that art—and the communities it strengthens—continue to flourish.
