Category: Quotes

What for? How come?

Color is like cooking. The cook puts in more or less salt, that’s the difference! ~ Joseph Albers, (Sensational Color)

Color Swatches done with ink and colored pencil
Teaching Color is not Akin to doing Color, Hendricks © 2020 

Concerned with the practical intent, I mean by choosing a width of a pen, or the softness of a pencil, or the shade and color of a pencil and how it reacts to a substrate. I set about doing a series of studies using the media that I am fond of at this moment. I stumbled into some articles discussing the intent of the artist. Yes, the intent of the artist is important, but… is it important to the audience. Does the work have to be explained by the artist? 

I know why I am drawing and studying the various software that I am, but I am on a path… and as a great hike, I don’t know the adventures, disappointments, wonderful sights, and joys  I will enjoy along the way. I know that in some way, it is a spiritual quest, one that will give me insights both in the conscious and unconscious realms.  

Whether or not it is important, I have to reveal; I believe in something, maybe you can call it God, that is up to you. That belief and my current self combines and presents itself in my artwork. If you have followed my work, you know that I have studied and learned to question what reality is, and I know that we as humans only experience a minute fraction of that reality actually is. For the moment, I am focused on Creation, Chaos, and Order and letting that present itself in my work, as feeble as my efforts might be to let that occur, I hope you both enjoy and allow yourself to explore what I see. 

The Retirement Adventure … Continues

It is enough to say that the Greeks thought it was Chaos who, with a massive heave, or a great shrug, or hiccup, vomit or cough, began the long chain of creation that has ended with pelicans and penicillin and toadstools and toads, sea-lions, lions, human beings and daffodils and murder and art and love and confusion and death and madness and biscuits.

Stephen Fry
Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold
Colored pencil and Sakura Pigma Micron Pen drawing.
the Chaos Machine, 5″x5″, mixed media, Hendricks © 2020, all rights reserved


At least that is how it feels at times. I am whittling down options and getting to know media. I am still drawn to Blender, Procreate, Affinity Photo, Second Life, drawing with Micron Pens, graphite, and Color Ease erasable pencils. 

I have been reading Mythos, by Stephen Fry. I wanted to get to know Greek Mythology better. Stephen Fry does an excellent job, and it is written with humor I enjoy. The piece included in this post is called the Chaos Machine.

Creation, Chaos, and Order

The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions that have been concealed by the answers.

James Baldwin
99 Inspiring Quotations on Art, Creativity, Life and Livelihood
Mixed-Media Drawing
Chaos 2, Mixed Media Drawing, Hendricks©2022

Chaos II, Hendricks ©2020, approx. 5″x5″, Found paper, pen, and colored pencil

Continuing to work and play with both images and media, I find a path to prayer and meditation as I work. Prayer or mediation are words that I, as a Quaker, find a bit disingenuous. For me, I find in the silence, and I can open myself to my higher power. 

This quote is meaningful to me because this reality that I experience is experienced to me through my brain’s filters.  So the answers at times seem very clear… but it is the questions that are a mystery. In most Quaker meetings, there is an opportunity for individuals to ask for a clearness committee to help discern questions in their lives. I guess it is the art that I work with and enjoy that serves as my clearness committee. This committee provides questions to the answers and provides questions to explore to seek further clarity to the existing answers.

Doodling Vs Drawing

Doodling is to the [artist] what stream-of-consciousness is to the writer.

~Alvalyn Lundgren, Alvalyn Studio

Doodle or Art?

Ink drawing by Bill Hendricks, all work copyrighted.
Creation, 2020—pen,  Bill Hendricks©2020

Great question!

It has both the aspects that Alvalyn Lundgren’s article describes. It had no real purpose. It doesn’t need to depict anything like a person. There was no pressure to perform, but it is meaningful, and a drawing that does communicate.  Not sure how well or not. It is merely a series of marks. They are playful, geometric, linear, shaded, or whatever. It is a question I am interested in considering. 

I will go with automatic drawing with thoughtful consideration. Thus, art.

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.