Celebrating women’s creativity through luxury travel experiences and meaningful conversations
My first involvement with Art W Global came coincidentally: the organization’s founder, Marjorie Martay, was my boss. Art W was one of her passion projects, dedicated to helping women artists attain equal wall share in galleries and museums, by means of advocacy, education, and curation.
Today, Art W is also home to a travel program called “Women We Create” which brings cultural connoisseurs to meet female cultural leaders in their home territories, set against the most luxurious travel experiences to world-leading destinations. In Fall 2025, we took a dozen such travelers to Paris and Nice for 11 days, meeting a dozen female makers across the cultural landscape in personal settings—art studio visits, chefs’ tables, dance ateliers, galleries and more. Our inaugural program took a similar approach to meet 10 phenomenal women in London and Somerset, England.
When we launched the nonprofit’s globalized programs in 2016, I also redeveloped the identity for the organization that is still in use today. In addition to its Women We Create travel editions, Art W regularly hosts salon-style discussions to look at a specific artist’s practice in a context that the artists can inform by bringing their point of view directly to the audience, as well as topically driven roundtables on myriad issues, such as collecting women artists, market dynamics, and more. Artist speakers have included A-Listers like Faith Ringgold, Judy Chicago, Naomi Kremer, Anj Smith, Hélène Delprat and Kathleen Gilje; and expert guests have included Valeria Napoleone, Elizabeth Sackler, Christian Levett, and many others.
Art Miami 2013
In the fall of 2013, Art W collaborated with ArtMiami to put together a roundtable and VIP tour of all the women artists showing in the fair—and their galleries. A small team of us mobilized to create a printed and interactive guide. Elizabeth Sackler keynoted our roundtable, which had dozens of artists participating, with an intimate group of 100 in the audience, which we convened in the morning hours before the fair opened to the public.
The impact was astounding, bringing about 85 collectors to 24 galleries’ booths, representing 103 individual women artists, and resulting in sales across the day. Years later, these artists remain readily available to these collectors and to Art W for salons and shows, having benefitted, even if merely by association, from this one morning. In 2016, Marjorie Martay moved to formalize Art W’s work in a global foundation, which I’m now proud to serve on the board of.
Women We Create
The inaugural Women We Create trip set off for London and Somerset, England in September, and provided a week of extraordinary programs and adventures. The first stop, Bruton, in Somerset, gave the guests two days at Hauser & Wirth’s art center, where we immersed in a special show of works from Ursula Hauser’s personal collection, receiving a private tour from her personal curator, followed by a private luncheon with the head of education for the gallery, Debbie Hillyerd, who hosted us throughout the time there (today Hillyerd is a partner in the organization and global head of learning for all of Hauser).
Once in London, the group had a private lunch with chef Skye Gyngell at her Michelin-starred Spring restaurant; visited the studio of Anj Smith to talk about her process and view her works; shared a meal with Tali Pelman, producer of Tina! The Musical before taking in the show that night; and so much more. A program to Berlin was planned for 2020 before the pandemic grounded travel. The France Edition program from 2025 marked the program’s return and growth, and Women We Create is aiming to launch its third journey in Europe in 2027.
Each of the women and organizations we visit receives an honorarium in recognition of their achievements, and the time we spend together builds a lasting community of feminist creativity unlike any other.
