Boston Women Woodcarvers
Abigail Ogilvy Gallery and Boston Sculptors Gallery are pleased to invite you to a roundtable conversation with Donna Dodson and Alison Croney Moses, moderated by Beth McLaughlin, Artistic Director and Chief Curator at the Fuller Craft Museum (Brockton, MA) on the occasion of Dodson's and Moses' current solo shows. These two prominent women share the craft of woodcarving and the language of creating three dimensional forms by hand. Each artist also draws from a lineage and community of makers and brings their unique vision to the medium. Known for her cutting-edge curation and contemporary craft collection development, Beth McLaughlin will explore the intersections and connections in the art and lives of these well-established Boston woodworkers in this roundtable conversation.
UnADULTerated Black Joy Artist Talk
The one month exhibition is a culminating event of multi-year community based art making with Black mothers, creating space for grieving, community, love, joy, and support.
Butterflies by Hand
The workshop, called Butterflies by Hand, is a warm gathering of Black Moms.
UnADULTerated Black Joy Exhibition Opening
Opening for Unadulterated Black Joy, a group exhibition by Black mothers and artists, Alison Croney Moses, Ekua Holmes, L’Merchie Frazier, Tanya Nixon-Silberg, and Zahirah Nur Truth, with stepping performance by EmpowHER’d.
Craft School: Boston Nexus
Boston is a city admired as a nexus of craft. Join us in conversation with local craft schools to discuss its past, present, and future.
Craft Schools: PLACE
Join us for a conversation between makers, teachers, historians, and community leaders exploring pivotal schools and other sites that have shaped craft—understood expansively—in the United States over the last century. Where is craft taught? In what ways does place matter to craft learning? And how do we access these places—or are there barriers in the way?
This is the second of three conversations related to “Craft Schools,” a multiyear project encompassing public programs with artists across the US, artwork acquisitions to enhance MFA Boston’s contemporary craft collection, and, ultimately, a publication framing modern-day craft as inclusive and alive—inside and outside the walls of museums.
Namita Gupta Wiggers, craft historian and curator
Jenny Williams, teacher, weaver, and Nez Perce tribal member
Alison Croney Moses, artist and associate director of the Eliot School of Fine and Applied Arts
Aaron Beale, director of Berea College Student Craft
Moderated by Michelle Millar Fisher, Ronald C. and Anita L. Wornick Curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts
Vessel: Embodiment, Autonomy, and Ornament in Wood
One of the most fundamental forms in craft, the vessel has long been an essential tool for use as well as for understanding the universe and the afterlife. From bowls and spoons to crucibles and boats, vessels have facilitated human survival, industry, and legend. The vessel’s role of containment also positions it as a metaphysical device that carries the soul, or as a metaphor for understanding autonomy, power, and agency over one’s body.
Connecting to the Center for Art in Wood’s origins as an advocate for woodturning in art, this exhibition examines the vessel as a source of inspiration for artists working in wood. How have they been informed not only by the material and the pleasing roundness of the turned form, but also questions of offering and ownership, or concealment and emptiness? For millennia, the idea of the vessel has been used to explain the secrets of the universe. This exhibition, which includes works from the Center’s permanent collection as well as on loan, demonstrates the breadth of reflection, empowerment, subversion, and spiritual awareness inspired by the act of containment and the vessel form.
With works by: Humaira Abid, Michael Bauermeister, Vivian Chiu, Kyle Cottier, Alison Croney Moses, Frank E. Cummings III, Aaron Haba, Michelle Holzapfel, Dierra Jones, Maria van Kesteren, Markuu Kosonen, Jack Larimore, Sylvie Rosenthal, David Sengel, and Lynne Yamaguchi
The exhibition program is generously supported by the Cambium Circle Members of the Center for Art in Wood, the Bresler Foundation, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Philadelphia Cultural Fund, and Windgate Foundation. In-kind support was provided by Boomerang, Inc. and Sunlite Corporation.
Un-ADULT-erated Black Joy @ Chez Vous
Mamas! It's time to ROLL BOUNCE at Chez Vous!
Boston area Black mamas are invited to Chez Vous for a skate party. Leave the kids at home and join us for an afternoon of music and fun. Space is limited so please register. Limited funds are available to support with childcare.
Rentals are included. Concessions are available for purchase.
Come to learn, practice, or show off your skills with other mamas.
Un-ADULT-erated Black Joy @ BAMS Fest
Come on "Down Down Baby"to BAMSFEST for a Black Mama Playdate!
Hula-hooping, hopscotch, hand clapping AND Live music Saturday, June 11, 2022 from 2:00-5:00pm
Zahirah Nur Truth, Tanya Nixon Silberg, and Alison Croney Moses invite Black moms to BAMS Fest for music, hula hooping, and other Black girlhood fun. Bring a blanket, hula hoops or just your beautiful self. Come meet other moms and hold each other in fun and joy as we continue on this journey of motherhood.
Designing Motherhood Things That Make and Break Our Births
Designing Motherhood: Things That Make and Break Our Births explores the arc of human reproduction through the lens of art and design. The exhibition demonstrates the evolution of rights and societal norms pertaining to con(tra)ception, pregnancy, birth, and postpartum experiences over the last 150 years, highlighting that birth—and the material culture that surrounds it—impacts every living person. While being born is a universal human experience, the designs that shape it are not. Designing Motherhood invites you to consider why and how we have developed designs to facilitate reproductive health.
This exhibition brings together a unique constellation of contemporary artists and designers whose work helps us ponder the political, economic, and social implications of how we all relate to reproduction, juxtaposing photography with product design, portraiture with maternity fashion, and much more, to create a rich consideration of activism and policy change, as well as reclaimed joy, body literacy, and reproductive agency.
Who I am Today...By Working Together
As individuals, we are each a product of the people with whom we’ve engaged with throughout our lives.
Who have we worked with, been taught by or taught, been inspired by or inspired and how have these experiences and influences in our lives helped to shape who we are today?
Through the power of storytelling and reflection, we will hear from three individual makers as they share reflections and/or thoughts on how these past experiences have helped shape their outlook, their practice, and the field.
Moderator, Amy Umbel, maker and co-host of ‘Cut the Craft’ podcast, will take our three makers on a journey to articulate these impactful experiences.
Designing Motherhood Exhibit
Commissioned by Designing Motherhood, My Black Body has brought together Black mothers in the Boston area through virtual and in-person connection, exploration and cultivation of embodiment practice while supporting the development of artistic creations of honest and affirming representation.
New Light: Encounters and Connections
The exhibition is organized into 21 “conversations”—in each, a contemporary piece that has recently joined the collection is juxtaposed with one or two rarely seen objects acquired earlier in the Museum’s history.