Category: Creating or Constructing

Sharing Work from 2020/2021 — The First Steps

These early artwork pieces from 2020/2021 became the first steps in my developing art practice. These pieces became the foundation for the themes I’m exploring today: spirit through art, creativity, identity, and transformation.

Looking back, I can see how curiosity, play, and questions about who we are and how we change began to take shape in this work. Those themes continue to guide me, both in the studio and in how I think about art’s role in my life.

“Serious play is the essence of creativity.”
        — Paula Scher · TED-2008

I appreciate how play and spirit come together in these early pieces. You can see other works from that period in the gallery section.

👇 Let me know what speaks to you.

— Bill

Walking Reflections — November 7

Mark Making Chart:  Ephemeral Traces of Life

“It is not art in the professionalized sense about which I care, but that which is created sacredly, as a result of a deep inner experience, with all of oneself, and that becomes ‘art’ in time.”
— Alfred Stieglitz

A softly lit artist’s desk scattered with sketches, notes, and bits of color — a quiet space of reflection where creative traces remain after the day’s work.
My desk  — where all the threads seem to meet.

My art runs like a cable through all parts of my life, informing each piece of my ecosystem and holding the whole together. Whether it’s in the studio, in Second Life, with my family, or within my Quaker community, each part of my world informs the others.

The priority of these elements shifts day by day, even moment by moment — sometimes family (my refuge), and other times the other parts of my life take the lead. But it’s all part of my ecosystem.

Today, when I came home. I looked down at my desk — scattered with sketches, notes, and bits of color — I saw how true that is. Every part of my life leaves a mark here, fragile yet real: my ephemeral traces reveal my thoughts and making.

Bill Hendricks

To Be Seen — Mixed Media Drawings 2025

From vision to form, from shadow to light — these works found their way into being.

Mixed Media Drawings — 2025 →

Bill Hendricks mixed media drawing 2025 — expressive watercolor and ink painting honoring the resilience and spirit of Marsha P. Johnson
Marsha P, watercolor and ink on paper, 2025

“History isn’t something you look back at and say it was inevitable, it happens because people make decisions that are sometimes very impulsive and of the moment, but those moments are cumulative realities.” — Marsha P. Johnson

After four years of building a body of work, I’ve reached a turning point.
When I retired, I promised myself to return to the questions that began with my thesis — shadow, symbol, communication, reality, presence, and absence.

This painting marks that return. Its forms begin with light — and it is light’s rays that define an object’s appearance, translated by the eye that observes it.
Is this an image of circular tubes, or a visual echo of Marsha P. Johnson?
It moves between light and darkness, order and release — the space where renewal begins.

Sometimes celebration simply means knowing that the light is still here —
that something imagined has finally come into being.

Hope you explore this new gallery:
Mixed Media Drawings — 2025 →

A Heart Beats Within — From Study to Meaning

Abstract mixed media painting of a human-like form surrounded by pipes and grids, rendered in red and blue tones with a glowing central heart.
A Heart Beats Within — mixed media and gouache on paper, 5 × 7 in., 2025.

“I paint with my back to the world.”
— Agnes Martin

 

A Heart Beats Within began as two bookmarks — a small experiment in hot and cold colors and the discipline of straight lines. Over time, they grew into a single image, a kind of reunion — part study, part meditation.

What began as practice became a reflection on structure and color — a quiet commentary on the merging of the mechanical and the self.

How is am I feeling right now

How am I feeling right now?

Right now, I am feeling at peace. I am done with a project I have worked on for the last several weeks, and I feel accomplished.  I don’t think what I am feeling is pride or proud. Just centered and on a plateau.

Hydrangea-0829204--Fall Walk, Bill Hendricks
Hydrangea-0829204—How am I feeling?

Yesterday, I drew a Tower Tarot Card from my Rider-Waite tarot deck while thinking about the past. The way I interpreted the card was that it singled a change. The change was not accompanied by good or bad. Just change, and I can accept that because of what I was feeling as well after 22 years of teaching and running and working in an art gallery for five years. I see it beginning in the fall and ending in late August. Thinking about it further, I realized that my birthday is tomorrow. With my website ArtChangesLives(Dot)Com reorganized, I am happy with the documentation of the artwork posted. I do… I feel accomplished and thankful.

Bill Hendricks/Shadowmason

Bill Hendricks Selfie
Bill Hendricks, August 27, 2024