Category: Quotes

Presence Without Witness

Abstract watercolor of a fragmented head with window-like compartments and circular mechanical forms, suggesting shadowed urban architecture.
Tenement-02172026-watercolor

Lately I’ve been thinking about what remains of us.

Not reputation.
Not a big story.
Not even the full face.

Just trace.

A shadow on concrete isn’t the person, but it proves something stood in the light.

I keep circling the idea that existence doesn’t require constant visibility. When awareness drops away — sleep, silence, the spaces between — there isn’t spectacle. There isn’t narrative. And yet something remains.

Maybe that’s what a shadow is.

Not the full reality.
Not the whole person.
Just proof that contact happened. That light met form.

Not monument.

Existence.

A human being is only breath and shadow.                                                           ~ Sophocles

Curious— how the story begins after the last stroke.

Eye in the Sky

Abstract mixed-media work with layered color connecting to memories of 1980s NYC and The Saint, featuring a subtle blue eye form in the lower right.
Eye In Th eSky-12012026

“I am the maker of rules, dealing with fools.”
— Eye in the Sky, Alan Parsons Project

Curious how the story begins with the last stroke of the pen or brush. As I look at the image — the strokes, shadows, and hues — something of the ’80s returns: the Saint, that holy spot. Dancing there with people I loved — accepting and greeting the universe. Death, hope, sorrow, play, joy, and the celebration of life — and a song: Eye in the Sky.

The line says “dealing with fools”…Nah. What circulates in my head is “protector of fools. I can read your mind.”

Bill Hendricks (Shadowmason)

Song reference: Eye in the Sky — The Alan Parsons Project

Related post:
Surrealism, Automatic Drawing and the Spirit
— a reflection on creativity, memory, and the unseen.

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 →