Christopher Street, West Village, 1980

A Drawing, a Beginning, and Finding a Home

I made this drawing in 1980, just after I moved to New York City.

I was a kid from Minneapolis — recently out of college, a couple of years into working — and I had come to a quiet but unavoidable realization: staying where I was would mean living part of my life in a closet, or keeping parts of myself hidden. I decided to check out both Chicago and New York to see where I might land.

Chicago felt hard to me.
New York felt open.

Within two weeks of arriving, I fell in love with the West Village. I went back to the Twin Cities only long enough to pack and was back in New York by Halloween. I found a roommate, found a job, lost a job, survived on unemployment — and like so many people before and after me, I found my community on Christopher Street.

This drawing came out of that moment.

I spent a lot of time at a small coffee shop called Kiss My Cookies. It was comfortable, cozy, and ahead of its time — cookies, brownies, coffee, small tables, and long conversations. I was there so often that Cy, the owner, offered me a job. I worked alongside Scott, Ralph, and Carlos, and two beat cops who stopped in regularly. Eventually, I wound up working at All State Art, a gallery just down the street.

Between the coffee shop, the gallery, and the block itself, Christopher Street became a cast of characters: Rollerena (sometimes called the Fairy Godmother), Marsha P. Johnson — often known as the saint of Christopher Street — along with actors, porn stars, artists, eccentrics, sweet misfits, a clown-college graduate, a lesbian manager, the joyful disaster of an owner’s brother, shopkeepers, cops, neighbors, and passersby. It was dysfunctional, funny, chaotic, kind, queer, deeply human.

This drawing isn’t meant to be a perfect architectural record. It’s an act of looking. The signs, the storefronts, the fire escapes, the rhythm of the street — all of it mattered to me. I was learning how to see a city not as a backdrop, but as a living system of people, labor, chance encounters, and survival.

When I look at it now, I sometimes think that stretch of Christopher Street was a sitcom waiting to be written. Not tragedy. Not trauma as the headline. Just life — community, chosen family, humor, tenderness, and endurance — long before anyone called it representation.

The paper has yellowed over time. I’ve chosen to leave it that way. It’s part of the object’s history, part of its truth.

This was home.

Author: Bill Hendricks -- Shadowmason

I’m a Minneapolis-based artist working in watercolor, gouache, oil, drawing, and mixed media. After teaching art and design for many years, I returned to making art fully. These days, I spend my time drawing, painting, experimenting, and paying attention to what shows up. I often work small. My work moves between observation, memory, and imagination. Some pieces lean surreal. Some stay close to what is seen. What interests me is what begins to emerge when I stay with the work long enough. On my blog, you’ll find both my artwork and my reflections. I’ve come to see they are connected. What I learn in the studio often changes how I see my life, my relationships, and my community. In that way, art has become more than making objects — it has become a way of understanding and being in the world. View all posts by Bill Hendricks -- Shadowmason