“MAKE>FORWARD asks us to define where we would like to go, but it necessitates knowing where we are now and where we have been. This scope can be individual, or infinitely collective. The tension of the present, informed by the past and influenced by the future speaks to the human challenge of simple existence. Make is the action that weaves this trichotomy into a unity that creates space for healing and decisiveness. These works all engage with this trichotomy in some fashion—some swim into the murky past, others raise their eyes towards the lofty future, and still others ground themselves in the earthy present. 

To make is an act of process; it necessitates the dialogue with the generative, creative force in even the smallest, most mundane of actions. To make is to conjoin and weave together disparate ideas and objects into dialogue; it creates order, it creates unity. Conversely, to make can also mean to disassemble, to dissect, to fracture, to reduce to individual parts. This is the spirit in which our works for MAKE>FORWARD come together. 

The arrow as an extension of the eye articulates our fundamental experience as conscious beings—it communicates what is most important to us. The arrow communicates what we aspire to, what we currently ruminate on. It means that in the act of making, we are moving forward. It is an indication of value. “Here! Let us move this way—let us push a path from here to there.” It speaks of causality—to make is to move forward in time, in space, or in the psyche. Within these infinitely broad but infinitesimally personal scopes, we have assembled MAKE>FORWARD. These pieces ask the viewer to consider how they also MAKE>FORWARD, whether externally or internally. Life is beautiful even when it looks a mess. If you are open to hope, you can find it in the changing of the seasons, in the nod of a passerby, or in a perfectly round squirt of ketchup next to your fries.”