1.       Max Bard: This Work Was Made By You Me - Wood and litter

The sum of all parts speaks to the idea of holism, a central pillar to my creative process and artistic message. My art is a visual language that uses collected materials as primary resources to document the health of the American Landscape.  A collage of individual objects becomes a catalogue of data that speaks to a specific place and time, and tells a story of a land and its people. This work is a platform that connects people with the landscape. It allows them to reflect upon their personal relationship with the environment and the impact society has on it. In addition to enganging the public in a discussion about conservation, this project illustrates the important concept that an individual can be a beneficial component and create meaningful change within the larger system of our natural world.

2.       Linda Hoffman: Carry t-HeART - Bronze

Sometimes the heart is heavy — too heavy to carry alone. Naysayers and insurmountable difficulties make the task appear impossible. But by joining together and with fierce determination, we can Carry the Heart and make Art to bring healing to our world.

3.       Madeleine Lord: Lamb and Ewe -Steel, wood

We were all the little lambs of our Mother Ewe once upon a time.  This pair is united by being built from similar scraps, they are attached in content and separate as entities.  Sculpture gives us the chance to say something about the Whole by using a lot of parts.

4.       Gail Bos & Marnie Sinclair: A PIECE OF THE IMMENSE UNIVERSE - THE BLUE DOT -Multimedia with barrel rings and theater gels

Gail Bos, and Marnie Sinclair, have collaborated to create the six extinctions on our planet Earth, and the vast Universe beyond. The first extinction started 635 million years ago leading up to the sixth Holocene extinction which began 10,000 years ago.   It is ongoing because of human activity which is contributing to the warming of the planet.  The Universe is made up of gases, matter, stars, planets, nebulas, black holes, and dark matter-energy.  All that we can see represents less than 10% of the universe with the remaining 90% made up of dark matter-energy which is invisible. The insignificance one feels from such vastness punctuates the need to accept our ever-changing world.

The six extinctions are multimedia and the Universe images inspired by NASA telescope images are made from theater gels. Each separate image is suspended in a barrel ring.

5.       Silvina Mizrahi in collaboration with the students from O.S.D.C (Occupational Skills Development Center) from the Community Academy of Science and Health and LFI (Learning for Independence) classes from Boston Green Academy: Under the Same Sun - Mosaic tiles and cement

 “Under the same sun” celebrate Native cultures across the globe. Among the indigenous people, nature is particularly sacred. From the native Diaguitas in the North of Argentina to the Wampanoag in North America, universal patterns are used to symbolize natural elements.  It is as if an invincible thread connects all of us through our collective unconscious in time and space, each culture and race with its unique characteristics, yet at the same time a unified whole, the sum of all parts in humankind.

6.       Anna Kristina Goransson: Honoring - Wool, Medium, Wood, Paracord

There is a sense of hopelessness when it comes to gun violence in this country. In 2022, there were 50 school shootings. Gun violence is responsible for the most deaths of children in the USA. Honoring is a reminder of the senseless deaths of children and a way to honor their lives. Take a moment to take this in and then do something… spread the word, sign petitions, call your local reps, donate to the cause. We can all do something. Gun violence is preventable. It is not hopeless.

7.       Allen M. Spivack: Enigma Variation in Five Parts: An Installation - (1) Bird in the Hand; (2) Keyhole; (3) Victor Rat Trapped; (4) The Conversation; (5) Fractured Family Mirror - Wood, steel plate and rod, wire mesh, plastic birds, cast plastic hands, saw, acrylic, household objects, Victor Rat Traps, mirror glass

Is the W-hole more than the sum of its P-arts? You decide whether your experience of this installation changes as you consider each individual sculpture and then all five sculptures as an ensemble? I’ve used familiar objects and presented them in ways that might feel disquieting, arbitrary, and even absurd to you. Does it capture the sense of disconnection I’ve been feeling from those things in my life that have always given me security, emotional wellbeing, and tranquility? Enigma Variation in Five Parts is a sculptural response to my emotional turbulence. Please-take your time. Look and then look again. Allow this sculpture to work on you.   

8.       Stage: Bobbin Bridges - Wooden bobbins, screws, string

In 2005, a former textile mill in Lowell, MA was being renovated into artists’ studios. The dramatic transition from one purpose to another left behind many beautiful remnants of days gone by. Hundreds of wooden bobbins from old looms were being tossed -- or claimed by artists who love working with discarded materials.

9.       Barbara Fletcher: Synergy - Aluminum, wire screen

Synergy, the modern-day definition of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. This combination working together creates an effect more powerful than what one individual can achieve. Today with all the issues around us, predominantly climate change we see and feel a lack of sync with nature. A quote by writer Donna Goddard, “If we are in sync with nature, we will be in sync with ourselves because although we belong to heaven we are made from Earth.” My sculptural piece shows arms outstretched reaching but not connecting. The two “whole” figures arise at the end of the chain of cut out forms hands clasped merged with their grassy environment.

10.   Bette Ann Libby: Hello Earth - Upcycled vinyl banners and returned laytex paint samples

"Hello Earth" paintings began as an optimistic view of the beauty of the planet based on views from space. By themselves, they illustrate how "the sum of its pARTS" come together to form the whole world which we inhabit, the perspectives, the colors and compositions created in nature are revealed. Hopefully, all inhabitants of the planet will join together to protect the earth for future generations.

11.   Melissa Shaak: Just Like a Tree - Digital prints of acrylic paintings, each mounted on a steel base

These particular trees, standing by the Muddy River, are just our size. As are the cutout figures, seven in all—Djuna, Journey, Estella, Flor aka Back to You, D. Ray, Françoise, and Jade. The cutouts and the trees mirror each other, with invisible stakes like roots, and raised arms like branches. Placed together, they embody the metaphor central to “We Shall Not be Moved.” This inspired anthem of the labor and civil rights movements invokes the power of the collective, of the greater whole, calling on us to stand together and stand firm.

12.   Stacey Piwinski & Rebecca McGee TuckL Disco BeBop - Repurposed plastic jewels, yarn and found objects

Bebop is an improvisational type of jazz music which inspired us to create disco balls with the same spontaneous feel.

Rebecca and Stacey have combined forces to create this piece for The Sum of its pARTS. The students from Loker Elementary School in Wayland have helped make this piece with the intention of creating a feeling of inclusivity, diversity, and hope. In these times of division, it is important to be able to find places to connect and feel uplifted.

13.   Anne Kamilla Alexander: Blue Gastropods - Maple

My work is organic in form inspired by small nature specimens such as marine life and plant pods. The sculptural forms express themes of growth, life cycles and stages, and regeneration. I investigate connections between our surrounding environment and the human body. The driving theme of my work is exploring and enhancing the spiritual and physical connection to the natural world.

14.   Stacy Latt Savage: Flux - Steel and wood

Stacy Latt Savage is a sculptor who works across mediums endlessly searching for answers to the “big questions” through a studio practice signified by a love of making, an enchantment with idiosyncratic combinations and a devotion to process and visual discovery. Her sculptures reflect a cultural anxiety and a vibrating unease, that she believes are the by-products of our rapid-paced, media-saturated, and turbulent culture.  In Flux, a globe sits amidst a spine that runs from order to chaos.  The 500 steel rings that make up the globe represent the ‘whole is greater than the sum of its parts’ and the feeling that we are culturally pulled toward disorder and polarization, when what we desire is peace.

15.   Janet Kawada: Dropping the bALL - Golf balls, steel wire, plastic spools

Draped around a tree as a necklace and bracelets, discarded materials become adornment for the environment.  Recycling the detritus left out by humanity,  the bejeweled trees  invert the waste not/want not sensibility.                                          

16.   Liz Helfer (USA), Steve Coles (UK), & Lu Xu (China) with Christie Carson (NZ) & Nathan Felker (USA): Eisenwunderwelt: Objective Permanence - Cast iron, wood, acrylic, paint

Eisenwunderwelt translates to “Iron Wonder World” inviting contemporary reinterpretation of cabinets of curiosity and their intersection with cast iron. Objective Permanence is a cabinet reinterpretation of things so rare, they are gone; highlighting the stories of disappearing culture, obsolete technology, and extinct animals. Each item has been cast in iron to memorialize how they were once treasured or integral to a way of life. Their obsolescence or extinction can be linked to the rise of iron during the first industrial revolution; iron paved the way for steel processes that changed manufacturing and sped up globalization. This in turn radically changed the way people live and destroyed the habitats of species around the world. Each object is associated with a QR code that links to an audio file.