Ashley: Who are you, and what do you do?

Martine: I’m a curator, art dealer, and creative at heart. For the past 17 years I’ve built my life around connecting people to work that moves them. I work closely with artists to help shape and present their voices, and with collectors to help them find pieces that feel inevitable, like they were always meant to live together.

Ashley: When you discover an artist, what makes you stop and look closer?

Martine: Authenticity. I can feel when an artist is truly in conversation with themselves rather than chasing trends or validation.
I’m drawn to work that carries risk—where the artist has clearly surrendered some control and let intuition lead. If a piece feels alive, unresolved, or slightly dangerous in the best way, I’m in.

Ashley: What’s been the most exciting moment of your career?

Martine: Honestly, it’s not one single moment—it’s the quiet realization, over and over again, that I’ve helped a collector’s relationship to artgrow. Watching someone stand in front of a piece and suddenly see themselves reflected back—that never gets old. Those moments feel electric and deeply human.

Ashley: What place in New Orleans feeds you the most?

Martine: The Warehouse District, the Marigny, the Garden District, Algiers Point, The Quarter—each holds a different rhythm. New Orleans feeds me because it refuses to be polished. It’s layered, haunted, joyful, and unapologetically itself.

Ashley: I love love your style. How would you describe it in three words?

Martine: Intentional. Romantic. Slightly wild.

Ashley: What’s the most meaningful piece of jewelry you’ve owned—and what memory lives inside it?

Martine: My engagement ring. It reminds me that beauty deepens with age and that the most powerful things we have are the ones that have lived alongside us. Jewelry, like art, becomes meaningful when it witnesses your life rather than decorates it.