Most of woodworker Alison Croney Moses’s sculptures are fairly small. She coaxes thin veneers into delicate, undulant shapes that open, scoop, and hold.
Crafting a piece for the sprawling, ambitious Boston Public Art Triennial meant going much bigger. “This Moment for Joy,” opening at the Triennial’s Lot Lab in Charlestown on May 22, is large enough to take a walk in.
“This thing is ginormous,” Croney Moses said this week. The piece, a curved wooden structure meant to invite people inside, is over 8 feet tall and 14 feet wide.
When she conceived of the sculpture last fall, “we were not in this particular moment,” the artist said, referring to the turmoil and anxiety Donald Trump’s presidency brought to her world. But after the election, a safe space for joy seemed all the more urgent.
Croney Moses,42, has been making rounded wood sculptures since her grad school days at Rhode Island School of Design. It was only when she had children – now six and eight – that she found her artistic mission.
“I have done a lot of work in my art practice to process my experience of that transition” to motherhood, she said. “The societal context in which that happens is not caring and supportive — specifically for Black women.”
Black women are three times more likely than white women to die from pregnancy-related causes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Croney Moses knew those kinds of statistics when she developed postpartum preeclampsia after one pregnancy. Her blood-pressure spiked, which can cause a stroke. “I’m the success story. I didn’t die,” she told WBUR in 2023.
When she sought out community with other Black women, she found healing, and with other mothers, organized gatherings for joy and play.
“We have to find our joy, we as women, to feel free regardless of what society is doing,” Croney Moses said. “To feel free, we have to lean into our joy so that we actually have balance in our lives.”
Her own bodily experience began to inform her sculptures — womblike vessels, pods referring to babies, surfaces like skin — and Croney Moses’s career took flight. In 2023, she left her job as associate director of the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts to make art full time. This year, the Institute of Contemporary Art awarded her a 2025 James and Audrey Foster Prize. Her success poses a question for an artist on the rise: Can she stay in a city that hasn’t historically supported contemporary artists?
“I’m on a tipping point of, ‘Am I rooted in Boston? Is this feasible for me to continue my art practice and continue to grow?’,” she said. “Things like the Boston Triennial, I think, make it feasible.”
Then there’s community. “This Moment for Joy” is a space for gathering.
“This piece really has Black women in mind, but it’s for everyone,” she said. “I hope everyone feels welcomed and encouraged to gather there.”
Croney Moses and two other Boston artists, Andy Li and Evelyn Rydz, took part in the Triennial’s Public Art Accelerator program. They met weekly for 14 weeks and continue to get coaching and support from each other and the program.
“You don’t really learn public art in school,” said Triennial assistant curator Jasper A. Sanchez, who runs the program. “It’s designed as an on-ramp for public art.”
The group learned how to untangle the red tape surrounding public art. When they grappled with size, everything about Croney Moses’s practice changed. Usually, a simple sketch is all she needs to start building a sculpture. “Half the design work happens as I’m making it,” she said.
That wouldn’t wash for ginormous.
She started with her familiar, pod-shaped vessel form. “But when you translate that to a large-scale solid wood construction,” she said, “that feels really overpowering and kind of oppressive.” To boot, she learned that enclosed spaces are verboten in public art — people might sleep in them.
“I ended up jumping from this solid construction I normally work with to an open slatted construction,” Croney Moses said. “I’m hoping that design will still have that feel of protection and safety.”
After several iterations digitally and in the woodshop, the final product came together earlier this month at wood fabricator 4 Nichols’s Lowell studio. Croney Moses felt good about it. “I hope I do this again at this scale,” she said.
Next, she faces the “public” part of public art. At this size, she hopes her piece is seen as a clarion invitation.
“It’s like a call to the public of ‘this is a moment for joy.’” Croney Moses said. “I know there’s all this other work we have to do. But we cannot forget the joy.”