The lawyer and fine art insurance broker, 32, didn’t grow up going to museums but has built a career around caring for contemporary art and artists—serving as a member of the Bronx Museum of the Arts’s board of trustees and as a patron of Project for Empty Space. She has a soft spot for sculptors who work with unconventional materials and family archives—even though she still has a hard time explaining her interests to her own mom.

Every collector has made a rookie mistake or two. What was your most memorable?

When I joined the Bronx Museum as its youngest trustee, I was eager to make an impact and quickly reinstated the acquisitions committee, which I now chair. One of my earliest proposed donations was a work by Gozié Ojini from my dear friend, gallerist Silke Lindner. I was so focused on the artist and the gesture that I did not consider the scale of the work I had selected. After visiting Gozié’s studio in New Haven, I discovered a larger sculpture that felt better suited for an institutional collection. Silke and Gozié graciously worked with me to switch the pieces. Now, I remember to consider context and scale when approaching works for institutional donation.

What art-world trend would you like to see come to an end?

Exclusivity—particularly the kind that assumes young, self-made collectors don’t belong. I don’t come from money, I didn’t grow up around art, and I’m younger than most people sitting at the table. That often means dealers are underestimating me. But the truth is, us young collectors are often the ones showing up at MFA open studios and building real relationships with artists.

There have been times at an art fair booth or gallery viewing where I knew more about the artist’s practice than the gallery director selling the work. That’s partly because I spend a lot of time researching artists, but also because I could never live with a piece without knowing its story. I’ve noticed a lot of the works I collect tie into familial archives and personal histories.

Did your family collect anything when you were growing up?

Not at all. I was raised by a single mom and neither of my parents finished high school. To this day, my mother doesn’t fully understand what collecting art means to me. Growing up with that distance from the traditional art world shaped my perspective, and I am deeply committed to making art more accessible. That’s what led me to form the Falls Foundation—a nonprofit private lending collection focused on contemporary works by underrepresented voices across the Americas, with a special focus on women sculptors. Building a lending collection rooted in emerging voices is my way of increasing that accessibility by helping democratize ownership, visibility, and cultural power.

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