Category: Information about the Blogger

Why the Stiletto?

Magenta high heel logo on cyan background, representing ArtChangesLives(Dot)Com and Bill Hendricks’ brand identity.
The ArtChangesLives(Dot)Com logo — a magenta high heel on cyan, representing who I am, the work I do, and the life I claim.

This stiletto mark represents ArtChangesLives(Dot)Com, but it also represents me. Its stiletto symbol meaning is deeply personal.

Growing Up Different

As a child, I loved crayons, paper, toy service stations, record players, cameras, and yes, even dolls. I was drawn to making, imagining, and worlds that did not always fit neatly into what was expected.

As I grew older, especially in my pre-teen years, I recognized more and more that I was the other, and I learned quickly that fitting in seemed safer than standing out.

But coming out changed that.

When the Stiletto Appeared

Years later, in graduate school, while working on a project about how shadows may have shaped my life, the image of a stiletto presented itself to me.

Shadow of a high-heeled shoe cast against a wall, the original photograph that inspired the ArtChangesLives(Dot)Com stiletto symbol.
The original photograph — a shadow study from graduate school where the stiletto first appeared in my work.

What This Mark Means

The high heel is power, presence, and confidence. Sharp. Elegant. Strong. It takes up space without apology.

Cyan and magenta speak to identity, fluidity, courage, and becoming. They also carry the language of design, color, and creative life.

I am a gay man, and I have always known there is both masculine and feminine within me. I do not see that as conflict.

What I most admire is the strength of women—their resilience, grit, and what they endure. That strength shaped how I understand beauty, power, and identity.

So this mark is both banner and mirror.

It stands for the work.

And it stands for who I am.

Be who you are.
Stand in it.
Without apology.

For me, the stiletto symbol meaning is about identity, strength, and standing fully in who I am.

Sometimes a symbol chooses us before we understand why. Has that happened to you?

Post Openings on SLEA (4SW)

The Labyrinthine/Labyrinth opened
on November 15, 2023

The worst Labyrinth is not that intricate form that can entrap us forever, but a single and precise straight line.
~ Jorge Luis Borges (Author, The Library of Babel)

I termed the first party or opening a quiet opening the first hour of silence… Voice and music were turned off for the parcel; the only sounds were the chimes of Tibet chimes being rung as avatars walked through the hallways. During the second hour, DJ Sheperd played music that was both peaceful and still provided the installation’s visitors with a musical journey in the center dome. It attracted a small crowd. Quiet is not one of Second Life’s suits. I did enjoy sharing it with my visitors and friends.

A poetic drawing was used for my invitation to the quiet opening on Nov 15, 2023. It is of a tree, and the drawing is inverted. The white is now black.
The Invitation to the Labyrinthine, November 15, 2023

The Labyrinthine/Labyrinth second opening party was held on November 22, 2023

Poster for the second party at the Labyrinthine/Labyrinth. Friends from Brotherly Love, Exile, and a dance club moved their weekly party to the labyrinth's center.
Exile on Exile—> to SLEA (4SW), the Labyrinth

This was a well-attended party and celebration  DJ Tomtom, from Köln, Germany. Second Life is a global community. The music was great and everyone had fun. 

I am planning a Zoom tour soon. I will be announcing soon. 

Photographers may Disagree with Henri Cartier-Bresson

Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation.”
– Henri Cartier-Bresson
(Drawing Quotes to Speak to the Artist in You)

Frame—Drawing in Process.
Frame, Drawing in Progress, Hendricks©2023

Yesterday was my seventieth birthday, and I am beginning my third year of retirement, I have one bold request.

As a gift to me, could you subscribe to this blog?

ArtChangesLives(Dot)Com is owned by me and started in grad school almost two decades ago. Subscribing to my blog will help the blog’s rank on Google and other search engines. I hope it will become a place for people to share their thoughts while creating artwork … Meaning any of the arts.
I don’t know if I intend to show or sell my work commercially, but I am heading that way.
Thank you to the artists who agreed to let me link their sites to this site. Most of these individuals are friends.
Art has a vital power to promote understanding of one’s self and the world and provides a path for an artist to self-realize and connect with the known unknown.
It is a big ask, but could you subscribe to this site? I’d appreciate it.
BTW, my 70th birthday was fabulous, hearing from friends and family and spending it with family.

Information about Bill Hendricks (Shadowmason)

About Me… William John Hendricks

I am what I amAnd what I am needs no excusesI deal my own deckSometimes the ace sometimes the deuces. 
~ Jerry Herman, Composer (Wikipedia)

Bill Hendricks, (Shadowmason)
Bill Hendricks, 2021, in my office at Minneapolis College.

I’m a Minnesotan who has spent much of my life between Los Angeles and New York City. I consider myself a digital artist, but my work moves between tactile and virtual forms — printmaking, photography, drawing, and interactive installations.

My work has been shown in Minneapolis and New York and is held in several private collections throughout the United States. It has been exhibited in The Intimate Gallery at Gallery 148 in Minneapolis — a group show that explored the idea of collective consciousness — and in Postcards From the Edge, presented by Visual AIDSAttachment.tiff at the Robert Miller Gallery in New York City.

My digital work has also been archived by Rhizome ArtBaseAttachment.tiff, where my interactive piece Interpreted, Obscured and Sought (2005) is featured. Rhizome’s collection focuses on pioneering internet-based art, and being included there connects my work to a larger history of experimental digital practice.

For over two decades, I taught Graphic Design, Web Design, and Fine Art at Minneapolis College (MCTC) and also taught at Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD), where I earned my MFA. Teaching shaped how I think about art — as a dialogue between thought, feeling, and craft.

After retiring, I returned full circle to my studio practice, creating new work that blends ink drawing, photography, and 3D modeling. I continue to explore how the digital and the handmade can meet — how systems and structures can hold emotion and spirit.

My work also appears in Second Life, where I exhibit under the name Tap Quentin. In January, I was invited by the Second Life Endowment for the Arts to participate in a group show featuring digital prints and drawings. You can view some of my virtual work on the Second Life Marketplace at Ephemeral TracesAttachment.tiff.

Learn more about my current projects and reflections in the 2025 Mixed Media GalleryAttachment.tiff — where I continue to explore the quiet space between order and intuition, stillness and play.