Category: Grants and Shows

Words I Cannot Spell

Isle of Rowlyria, Second Life — August 2026

When I was asked to do a show in Second Life, I decided to go back to an older body of work. I didn’t want to make a new show just for the sake of making something new. I wanted to look again at work that still had something to say to me.

Words I Cannot Spell started several years ago at Hunt & Gather, a wonderful old junk shop in Minneapolis. I saw a pile of letters stacked on top of one another. I stopped and looked at them.

I thought, that’s how I see words.

I started taking photographs.

But the photographs were too perfect. The camera knew exactly where every letter was supposed to be. I don’t always see them that way.

I began to have fun. I jumbled things up to more or less replicate what a page sometimes looks like to me—with a dash of anxiety and confusion thrown in.

That is what interested me about bringing these pieces back for the Second Life exhibition.

I was very appreciative of the opportunity to show this body of work again. The work is older, but the experience behind it is still very much a part of how I see.

Lately I have been doing a lot more writing—articles, agendas, reflections, and writing about my artwork. Maybe that’s why I found myself thinking about those letters again and about how I see words.

Showing this work again gave me another opportunity to give the viewer a little insight into how I experience the world through dyslexia.

Sometimes older artwork just needs another place and another time to speak.

From the series, Words I Cannot Spell. A image by Bill Hendricks
From the series “Words I Cannot Spell,” by Bill Hendricks.

View the Words I Cannot Spell gallery

Hunt & Gather

Art Re-Education Revisited

I’ve been thinking about that phrase.

A few years ago, while attending Friends General Conference, I took a Zentangle workshop. Part of my interest was practical. As a teacher, I was always looking for things I could bring back to my students. At the same time, I was doing some spiritual searching of my own.

When I retired, my intention was simple. I thought I would return to the work I had left behind years earlier when I completed my MFA. While teaching, my focus had been on technology, my students, and teaching itself. I assumed I would pick up where my thesis left off and continue from there.

I did return to my thesis and to its central ideas: how perception and physiology affect our vision of reality.

What I discovered, however, was that too much had changed. The media I was working with had changed. My interests had changed. Instead of continuing where I left off, I found myself asking some of the same questions I had wrestled with in graduate school.

What is my art about?

What am I trying to say?

And what medium is best suited to saying it?

At some point, I began to wonder if I was engaged in a kind of re-education.

Looking back at those early pieces now, I can see that many of them focused on value, texture, repetition, and mark-making. At the time, I didn’t really realize what I was exploring, but now they feel a bit like exercises in learning how to see and do again. To me, that’s my art re-education.

What I do know is that one thing kept leading to another.

A drawing would spark an idea for the next drawing, and little by little my curiosity carried me beyond the boundaries of Zentangle itself. Questions about line and pattern turned into questions about color, surface, and different ways to make marks.

Before I knew it, ink led to watercolor, watercolor led to gouache, gouache led to colored pencil, digital work, and eventually oil paint.

The recent exhibition at Collective Z feels like a milestone along that path. With the show entering its final week, I’ve found myself taking a breath and wondering what comes next.

And perhaps that’s the point: I’m still asking questions.

I’m not sure where the path leads from here, but I’m still eager to follow it.

“Art does not reproduce what we see. It makes us see.”

— Paul Klee

Reflections on Collective Z

Reflections on Collective Z

Bill Hendricks, Kaitlin Reid, and Michael Reid pose in front of Marsha P. during The Ordinary exhibition at Collective Z Gallery in Manhattan, June 4, 2026.
Bill Hendricks, Kaitlin Reid, and Michael Reid at The Ordinary, standing in front of Marsha P. at Collective Z Gallery in Manhattan, June 4, 2026.

My drawing, Marsha P., was recently included in The Ordinary, a Pride Month group exhibition at Collective Z Gallery in Manhattan.

I went to New York not knowing quite what to expect. It had been a long time since I had shown work in a setting like this, and I arrived with all the usual questions: How would the work look? How would people respond? Would I feel comfortable there?

What surprised me most was how interested I became in the other artists’ work. I arrived focused on my own piece, but quickly found myself drawn into the larger exhibition. The quality of the work impressed me, and I was proud to see Marsha P. holding its own among it.

There was another surprise.
Friends appeared. Some I had not seen in years. Others reached out online. Their support meant more to me than I expected.

Standing in the gallery, surrounded by artists, friends, and people engaging with the work, I felt something I hadn’t anticipated: a sense of belonging.

When I look back on the experience, I will remember the artwork, the conversations, and the people who showed up. But I will also remember realizing that, after many years, I still have something to contribute as an artist.

For that, I am grateful.

The Ordinary remains on view through the end of the month at Collective Z Gallery in Manhattan. Marsha P. is also available for purchase.

I am especially grateful to Alex Wang and Collective Z Gallery for creating the exhibition, bringing together such a diverse group of LGBTQ+ artists, and making space for these conversations.

The Ordinary — Pride Month Exhibition at Collective Z

Promotional collage for The Ordinary, a Pride Month group exhibition, featuring a grid of diverse mixed-media artworks including abstract drawings, figures, symbols, and contemporary visual narratives by participating artists.
The Ordinary — a Pride Month group exhibition at Collective Z Gallery featuring works by participating artists.

“Being queer is ordinary. So is making good work.”
— Collective Z, The Ordinary exhibition statement

When Collective Z announced The Ordinary, I immediately understood why the title mattered.

For many of us, simply living our lives has too often been treated as something unusual, controversial, or in need of explanation. Yet most of life is made up of ordinary things: friendships, work, love, loss, community, and the hope of being seen for who we are.

My piece Marsha P. is included in this exhibition. It began as a reflection on Marsha P. Johnson, but it also became a reminder of the people who came before us and the lives that made our own possible.

Sometimes the most important stories are not extraordinary at all. They are simply human.

Marsha P. Johnson, New York, and Old Threads

Expressive watercolor and ink painting with luminous circular and organic forms, honoring the resilience and spirit of Marsha P. Johnson.
Marsha P, watercolor and ink on paper, 2025

Accepted: The Ordinary — Collective Z, New York

I’m happy to share that my piece “Marsha P. (Johnson)” has been accepted into The Ordinary, a Pride Month group exhibition at Collective Z in New York City.

The exhibition opens June 4, 2026 and runs through June 30. Michael and I will leave this Thursday to attend the opening on June 4 and return to the Twin Cities on June 7.

What’s interesting to me is that this isn’t really the beginning of something entirely new. While walking today I found myself remembering another LGBTQ exhibition in New York years ago that accepted one of my postcard works — a shadow image of Frank Stark and me against a wall.

Funny how these threads continue across time, even when we forget them for a while.

And if you’ve followed this blog for a while, you’ve probably seen Marsha appear here before.

“Marsha P. (Johnson)” is a mixed media work on paper inspired by Marsha’s presence, courage, and visibility. Having the work included in a Pride exhibition in New York feels especially meaningful given her history and connection to the city.

While working on the piece, there were moments where it felt as though Marsha herself appeared to greet me through the process — much the way insights or leadings sometimes emerge through meditation.

Image description:
Mixed media artwork on paper honoring Marsha P. Johnson. The piece combines layered textures, expressive marks, and symbolic imagery to evoke presence, resilience, vulnerability, and visibility within LGBTQ history and community.