Make Moves is a phrase that hand lettering artist and designer, Adam Gonzalez, lives his life by. He recently created stickers from that design and I was able to get my hands on one, when I met him at Creative South. So naturally the sticker made it into my sketchbook for the I See You, I Hear You project.

I met Adam Gonzalez at Creative South too and he handed me his 'Make Moves sticker, but when I got home I realized that amongst the many conversations we had, I never asked him why he created a piece with that phrase. I remember really being interested in finding out what it meant to him. Why were those words important? This was a conversation I wanted to have. I texted him on Sunday and we set up a phone call date for last Monday and chatted for a little while. What a story! What a dude! What an inspiration!

I mean, he wanted to call me and tell me his story. How cool is that? That was so humbling and now I have so much respect for him.

Adam Gonzalez has been dabbling in design and lettering for the last three years. He mentioned that he was blessed with people who reached out to him and brought him under their wings to train and teach him. But he struggled with a couple things such as a tendency to always look for shortcuts and hoping that someone else would just show him how different processes were done. This caused his work to just fall short of where it could have been as it drove him to not spend as much time creating, iterating and practicing.

Friends, here's where it gets interesting and amazing, In the last 7 to 8 months he's felt an unexplainable push from God to make things happen. To not put this gift he has to waste. Make moves in the right direction, if you will. He started to feel like if design and lettering was something he wanted to do, he needed to show up daily and put in the work necessary to grow his creative muscle.

Chatting with him on the phone, I was awe struck. I could feel the passion he has now. The urge to keep making, keep growing and the conviction to not waste this gift he's been given.

He in that one phone conversation has motivated me to continue this project past the people I met at Creative South and to keep looking for new connections. He's also taught me that this gift I have for illustrative papercutting is not permanent. So I need to MAKE MOVES while I can.

Thanks for checking in friends! :)

Adam Gonzalez Make Moves