Category: Reflection

Carolyn, Where Are You?

Composite image of the former TR's Gallery building at 51st Street and Seventh Avenue in New York City. Carolyn Solomon gave me my opportunity there, and today the space is occupied by a souvenir shop.
The former home of TR’s Gallery at 51st Street and Seventh Avenue. Today it’s a souvenir shop, but it still holds an important place in my story.

We never know the part we’ve played in another person’s life.
— Bill Hendricks

Carolyn Solomon, where are you?

It’s a strange question to ask someone I haven’t seen in more than forty years.

A few weeks ago, while I was back  for The Ordinary at Collective Z Gallery, I walked over to the building that once housed TR’s Gallery. I managed that gallery for Circle Fine Art in the mid-1980s. Today the space is a souvenir shop.

Standing there, I found myself thinking about you.

You may not remember me. I was one of many gallery managers. But you gave me an opportunity that mattered.

A bonus I earned while managing TR’s Gallery helped Michael and me start Desired Printing. Looking back now, I can trace a line from those years in New York, to teaching, and finally back to the studio.

When I returned home, I began looking for you. I learned that Jack Solomon had passed away. My condolences. He was always kind to me. I wasn’t able to learn much more about you.

This isn’t a letter expecting an answer.

It’s a thank you.

We never know the part we’ve played in another person’s life.

Looking back, I can see that you played a part in mine.

Wherever you are, Carolyn, thank you.

Returning to 51st Street

Returning to the former TR’s Gallery connected my first years in New York with my return as an exhibiting artist over forty years later.

Interior of the former TR’s Gallery space at 51st Street and Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, now converted into a brightly lit souvenir store filled with New York-themed T-shirts, mugs, gifts, and displays beneath a large “I ♥ NY” mural.
The former TR’s Gallery space today. The gallery where I managed Circle Fine Art’s TR’s Gallery in the mid-1980s is now a New York souvenir store. Walking inside, it was hard to imagine the walls once filled with original artwork instead of T-shirts, mugs, and postcards.

When I moved to New York in 1980, I knew exactly what I was looking for.

I was looking for a place where I could live openly as a gay man. I was looking for community. I was looking for a life where I didn’t have to explain or defend who I was. Like so many people before and after me, I came to New York searching for the freedom to become myself.

My first job was at Kiss My Cookies. Not long afterward, I went to work at All State Art on the corner of Christopher and Bleecker. From there I moved to TR’s Gallery, one of Circle Fine Art’s galleries, where I eventually became the manager.

This week I was back in New York because one of my drawings was included in The Ordinary, a group exhibition at Collective Z Gallery on the Lower East Side.

While walking through Midtown, I found myself standing in front of the building where TR’s Gallery used to be.

The gallery is gone. The ground floor is now a souvenir store. But the building is still there.

Standing there, I realized that I had come to New York searching then, and I had come back searching now.

The questions have changed.

At twenty-six, I was trying to figure out how to live.

At seventy-three, I’m trying to understand what that life has meant.

Maybe that’s one reason I’ve returned to making art.

The drawings aren’t simply images. They have become a way of looking back, asking questions, and seeing connections I couldn’t see while I was living them. More and more, the work feels autobiographical—not because it illustrates events from my life, but because every drawing carries something of the person who made it.

The gallery is gone.

The search isn’t.

Gratitude on the Last Day of Pride

Bill Hendricks sitting on rocks overlooking the Pacific Ocean in San Francisco, 1976, wearing puka shell necklaces and smiling into the camera. The photograph accompanies a reflection on gratitude, authenticity, and Pride.
San Francisco, 1976. Looking back at a younger version of myself—and feeling grateful for all the people who helped me become the person I am today.

Nobody, but nobody can make it out here alone.

—Maya Angelou, Alone

On this last day of Pride, I’ve been thinking about gratitude.

Looking back at this photograph from San Francisco in 1976, it’s pretty obvious I wasn’t trying to blend in.

Over the years, so many people looked beyond appearances and gave me the chance to learn, to serve, to teach, to create, and simply to become myself.

I’m grateful to my parents, my sister, and especially the Reid family, who became part of my chosen family. I’m grateful to my commanding officers in the Air Force, my professors, employers, colleagues, students, volunteers, and friends. I’m grateful to Minneapolis College, MCAD, Minneapolis Friends Meeting, and to Michael, who has walked beside me through it all.

None of us gets where we are alone. My life has been shaped by people who chose encouragement over fear, curiosity over judgment, and kindness over assumption.

As Pride Month comes to a close, thank you. You helped make my life possible.

Related post: This reflection continues many of the themes I explored in my recent post, Reflections on Collective Z.

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.

Finding Benton in Michelangelo

The Council Episode of the Battle of Cascina, painted by Bastiano da Sangallo after Michelangelo Buonarroti. A densely packed group of muscular male figures twist, gesture, and struggle in a dynamic battle scene derived from Michelangelo's lost Battle of Cascina cartoon.
Bastiano (Aristotle) da Sangallo (1481–1551), The Council Episode of the Battle of Cascina, after Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1542. This painting preserves part of Michelangelo’s lost composition for the unfinished Battle of Cascina

Thomas Hart Benton (1889–1975), Martha's Vineyard. Benton transformed the island landscape into a rhythmic composition of figures, movement, and place, reflecting his distinctive American Regionalist style.
Thomas Hart Benton (1889–1975), Martha’s Vineyard.

I was at the Raphael exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I was not expecting much after being at the Vatican and in Rome and seeing so many of Raphael’s works in person. However, the show at the Met was a real eye-opener.

Not only did it present the history and the images, but it also showed Raphael’s education and the many works he studied and used as references for his own work. Specifically, I was enamored by his drawings. The drawings had real life.

What I realized is that as he tightened the renderings, the life gradually faded away. I know I am not in any position to critique Raphael’s work, but that was one of the most amazing things I took from the exhibition.

The other surprise was finding an image created by an artist copying Michelangelo’s work. When I saw it, it reminded me so much of Thomas Hart Benton: the energy, the rhythm, even the lighting and shading.

It revealed to me that Benton, too, must have been deeply drawn to Michelangelo’s frescoes and to the undulating, muscular compositions Michelangelo favored.

One of the things I enjoy most about museums is that you never know what is going to stay with you. I went to see Raphael. I left thinking about Michelangelo, Thomas Hart Benton, and the ways artists borrow from one another across generations. Sometimes the most memorable part of an exhibition is not what you came to see, but the unexpected connection you discover along the way.

“The drawings crackle with nervous energy, which gradually attenuates as Raphael translates spontaneous insights into the cool, lacquered surface of painting.”
— Financial Times

That observation captured exactly what I felt walking through the exhibition.