What’s Bill Hendricks Been Doing?

My Sketchbooks, Hard Drives, and Blog are my Diaries.

“Painting is just another way of keeping a diary”
~ Pablo Picasso

Six weeks is a long time away from my blog, and hope other artists will want to post on ArtChangeslives(Dot)Com to share their art and experiences of how art has changed their lives.

I put together a collage of images of my work. After working with Blender for a couple of years, uploading some of my Blender 3D objects into Second Life, and earning a couple of grants, I see a path of combining some of my tactile work with my 3D work to produce sort of a hybrid work works for the Metaverse and conventional viewing. Mainly, it involves the viewer,  akin to working in a more traditional gallery or exhibition hall. 

In grad school (MCAD), I produced several installations, and I was attracted to the participatory nature and how visitors could interact with them. Kara Walker and other artists engaged the visitor by incorporating the viewers’ shadow into the work, creating a relationship to the work that mere viewing does not necessarily achieve.

So, in the past few weeks, I have not created work that has been completed, which I normally post. I was also concerned about posting work that was not completed. I found that it kind of destroys the Ta-da moment. Hmm… I wonder how important that might be.

I am on my way to completing a project in Blender/Second Life. It is a simply built house that will be used in Second Life as a skybox. A skybox is a floating home on a parcel of digital space. The house is pictured in the image below, and you can see the documentation and the progression of the build here: Learning Blender Better. In short, I chose to produce a simple building to learn and become more proficient. 

I am finding that blogging is important to me ArtChangesLives(Dot)Com is over and is approaching its 20th year. I struggle with openly revealing myself here, but as I said earlier, my sketchbooks, hard drives, and blog are my diaries. It seems Picasso had his own diaries-one being his paintings. 

The image contains a smattering of artistic investigations. It shows a collection of recent work, including ink drawings and digital images created in Affinity Photo and Designer, watercolor, and Blender.
An Exploration of Artistic Techniques and Combinations of Media.

Art ReEducation

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.  ~ Pablo Picasso

Bill's working studio.
My Subterranean Studio

Bill Hendricks’s studio, upper-right-corner is the traveling studio

I earned my MFA (Master of Fine Arts) from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD). It was a wonderful experience; I was lucky to have a teaching position at Minneapolis Community Technical College (MCTC). I taught Graphic Design and Web Design as a 3/4-time permanent faculty member and attended MCAD part-time as I earned my MFA. 

After graduation, I was ready to launch a career as a full-time artist. MCAD prepared me well by providing me with great instructors and an environment. 

Still, after graduation, I immersed myself in design, typography, the web, HTML, CSS, and associated software for the next 10-12 years for my students and job. I retired from teaching last year, and although the wonderful education MCAD provided. It was apparent; I needed to work where I left off after completing my MFA. So I am sharing and documenting my journey. Mainly for me.

Hey, did you hear the joke, “What do the acronyms BFA and MFA stand for?

Answer: BFA stands for big f—ing attitude and MFA for major f—ing attitude.”  I know it is an old joke.

Anyway, I added one new category in the sidebar titled, Inspirational and Technically Instructional–YouTube Channels. These sites, amongst others, re-educated and reminded me of some of the skills I lost.