Collaboration with Makers Mark and Vital Voices for women’s history month
For women’s History month I created this art to go on a very special label that you can personalize and order! Click HERE to order one for free!
A label inspired by the women who inspire you.
Surrounding ourselves with women who break barriers and push for progress has been ingrained in Maker’s Mark since day one, starting with our co-founder Margie Samuels. She not only designed the bottle but also built the whole brand from the ground up. For Women’s History Month, we’re building on her legacy – donating to Vital Voices in support of the impact women have all over the world. Join us in recognizing the women in your life with a free, personalized, limited-edition label.
Learn more about this wonderful project/collaboration with Makers Mark and Vital Voices. click HERE
Check out the making of video below!
Vital Voices: 100 Women Using Their Power to Empower
Vital Voices and Gayle Kabaker Launching Art Exhibit Showcasing 100 Women Using their Power to Empower
The companion book is published by Assouline and you can buy it HERE
The Vital Voices: 100 Women Using their Power to Empower Exhibition will be on Display from International Women’s Day 2020 through March 21, 2020 in the Hall of Nations at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Update June3,2021 The show is STILL up. Now I can say it’s the longest running exhibition at the Kennedy Center!
Click HERE to see the story in the Washington Post.
June 23,2020 PRESS RELEASE:
ASSOULINE FALL 2020
VITAL VOICES:100 WOMEN USING THEIR POWER TO EMPOWER
Edited by Alyse Nelson, Paintings by Gayle Kabaker
Vital Voices: 100 Women Using Their Power to Empower is an unprecedented book and companion art exhibition celebrating 100 global women leaders who are redefining power. Edited by Alyse Nelson, with a foreword by National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman and paintings by Gayle Kabaker, the book and exhibition feature a selection of original portraits, accompanied by thought-provoking excerpts of first-person narratives from some of the most influential and insightful women in the world, including: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Malala Yousafzai, Bozoma Saint John, Jacinda Ardern, Menaka Guruswamy and Arundhati Katju, Joy Buolamwini, Megan Rapinoe and so many more. Candid and compelling, each leader shares personal stories, wisdom and ideas, showing us that women lead differently and that this difference is sorely needed in our world today.
April 9, 2020 UPDATE
All events were cancelled the day after the show was hung. I was so disappointed that the opening was cancelled. I got the news on Friday night March 5 and was able to reach friends and family who were supposed to fly in. And the Vital Voices Global leadership awards the next night were cancelled as well, where 2500 people would have walked through the exhibition on the way to the theater. But - I realized how lucky I was that the show was hung, and I got to live with it for five days. My flight home was for March 12. I went there daily - sometimes twice a day. The guards began to recognize me and these women I'd lived with all year on my studio walls were now in this grand new home. I joked that I didn't want to leave them at night - and I'd just sleep there. The president of the Kennedy Center told a wonderful story about speaking to a guard who told her how proud he was that a woman from his country - Nigeria - was represented and how he'd sent photos of her portrait home to his family and friends. I was able to walk the exhibition with friends, family and clients. I sat on a bench and watched people looking at the portraits and reading about the women. I watched people taking selfies or photos of each other in front of portraits. As artists we can be terribly isolated and hearing and seeing so much positive feedback for the portraits after working so hard on this for so long ... was just incredible.
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WASHINGTON, DC – DECEMBER 18, 2019 – Vital Voices Global Partnership, an international non-profit organization that empowers and champions women leaders around the world, is partnering with artist Gayle Kabaker to create a ground-breaking art exhibit: Vital Voices: 100 Women Using their Power to Empower. The exhibit will debut on International Women’s Day (March 8, 2020) and will be on display in the Hall of Nations at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts through March 21, 2020 as a part of DIRECT CURRENT, the Center’s two-week contemporary culture immersion.
Vital Voices has worked with over 18,000 women leaders across 182 countries and territories throughout 20 years. From that experience, the organization understands what women lead differently; The thousands of women leaders Vital Voices has partnered with have been resolute in their sense of purpose and commitment to making positive change.
“2020 marks a significant year for women, with the centennial of women’s suffrage in the United States and the 25-year anniversary of the historic United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. It is a critical year for taking stock of all that’s been achieved in the global movement for gender equality,” said Alyse Nelson, President and CEO of Vital Voices. “As we look to the future, and the great unfinished business that remains, we turn to 100 of the most daring and creative leaders of our time, who share their vision and solutions in Vital Voices: 100 Women Using Their Power to Empower.”
Vital Voices: 100 Women Using Their Power to Empower is an unprecedented art exhibition and companion coffee table book, celebrating 100 global women leaders who are redefining power. The exhibition will feature a selection of original portraits, accompanied by thought-provoking excerpts of the first-person narratives included in the book. Candid and compelling, each leader shares personal stories, insights and ideas, showing us that women lead differently, and that this difference is sorely needed in our world today. While each woman is path breaking in her own right, it’s together that these 100 voices illustrate the transformative power of women’s leadership across cultures, industries and generations.
Kabaker says: “Painting such a wide range of women of all ages, from all over the world and 'getting to know' each of these amazing, strong, brave women by reading about them and studying their faces carefully from photos in order to catch their likeness in a painting, has felt like such a privilege,” said Kabaker about the exhibit. “It’s been quite an education. Sometimes uplifting and exciting, other times, really painful to realize the tragedies in these women lives that led them to become activists. I am so lucky to have an amazing creative collaborator in Vital Voices President, CEO and co-founder Alyse Nelson, who gave me lots of creative freedom to let each painting dictate what felt right. This has been one of the most rewarding projects I’ve ever worked on.”
