Tag: Digitally Enhanced Photo

Words I Cannot Spell

Isle of Rowlyria, Second Life — August 2026

When I was asked to do a show in Second Life, I decided to go back to an older body of work. I didn’t want to make a new show just for the sake of making something new. I wanted to look again at work that still had something to say to me.

Words I Cannot Spell started several years ago at Hunt & Gather, a wonderful old junk shop in Minneapolis. I saw a pile of letters stacked on top of one another. I stopped and looked at them.

I thought, that’s how I see words.

I started taking photographs.

But the photographs were too perfect. The camera knew exactly where every letter was supposed to be. I don’t always see them that way.

I began to have fun. I jumbled things up to more or less replicate what a page sometimes looks like to me—with a dash of anxiety and confusion thrown in.

That is what interested me about bringing these pieces back for the Second Life exhibition.

I was very appreciative of the opportunity to show this body of work again. The work is older, but the experience behind it is still very much a part of how I see.

Lately I have been doing a lot more writing—articles, agendas, reflections, and writing about my artwork. Maybe that’s why I found myself thinking about those letters again and about how I see words.

Showing this work again gave me another opportunity to give the viewer a little insight into how I experience the world through dyslexia.

Sometimes older artwork just needs another place and another time to speak.

From the series, Words I Cannot Spell. A image by Bill Hendricks
From the series “Words I Cannot Spell,” by Bill Hendricks.

View the Words I Cannot Spell gallery

Hunt & Gather

Starts with a Walk, then a photograph.

Starts with a Photograph, a set of images I created over the past few years. There are a few that I took on my walk to Minneapolis Community Technical College. 

Some of you know that I am recreating this blog, so people have seen some of the images, but there are new ones, too. I hope you enjoy it. 

I call this image the Tunnel of Light: a sun, a tree, and a lake. Sun is brilliant coming through the branches of the tree.
Tunnel of Light — Hendricks©2023

While working this month on my Labyrinthine/Labyrinth in Second Life, I discovered Jorge Luis Borges, an author, poet, and philosopher (1899 – 1986) born in Argentina. I used a quote from him in my last post. He wrote a short story that I am still digesting, a short story he wrote. The Library of Babel was published in the book The Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges.

I read the first few words and was hooked to read more of this man’s works.

The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries, with vast air shafts between, surrounded by very low railings. From any of the hexagons one can see, interminably, the upper and lower floors. The distribution of the galleries is invariable. 
~ Jorge Luis Borges, The Library of Babel, 1941

Living up to Expectations—My Own. :P

Art and Fear

What separates artists from ex-artists is that those who challenge their fears, continue; those who don’t, quit. Each step in the artmaking process puts that issue to the test.”
― David Bayles, Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

Besides my grant project, I have been finding all sorts of things to do and work on. Somewhere I read, start with the small, easy things. I like that idea.  

Fear of messing it up and fearing something does not up to my own expectations or how it will be judged, I think, confronts all artists.I read this book, Art and Fear, a long time ago. Milton Glaser, an artist I love, told me that is bullshit. Not so many words… but I got the idea so did my students.

Posting is one of my distractions, and so is creating this image. 

An image created by Bill Hendricks a photo of mine that I had fun creating.
Greeting Card — October 14, 2023 (My Distraction),          Hendricks©2023

 

 

Every Work of Art

“Every work of art is a culturescape of you, your memories, the moments you spent working, your hopes, energies, and neuroses, the times you live in, and your ambitions. Of the things that are engaging, mysterious, meaningful, resistant over time.”
― Jerry Saltz, How to Be an Artist

Digitally enhanced photograph by Bill Hendricks
Digitally enhanced image, Hendrick©2022

Finally, I got a gallery set up. I have to explore more because I am still determining if the plug-in NextGen Gallery is worth it.

I am reading Jerry Saltz’s book—Art is Life. I like it. He is very entertaining. I am unsure if I like him, but he speaks his mind. He seems to have compassion too. So I guess I do. But he would be a challenge, I think.

Loved his story of himself laying down the idea of being an artist. He speaks of creating art… akin to meditation and communing with the unknown. His question about … Is There Great Art on Instagram? I appreciated that he seemed to honor all the artists working… discovering… exploring… and most of all, creating art as an unknown but still creating. 

Then this article/chapter—Iconoclasm Now: Charlie Hebdo and the Lethal Power of Art. That chapter was a show-stopper for me; as a Quaker and even as a young man, I believed that what I created on paper, sculpted, and images I made, I breathed life into the work. So whether it is seen or unseen, it has life cause it was/is a part of me. He didn’t go there exactly, but when he spoke about the image breakers that believed the images that “the thing itself and, as made not by God, they contain demonic spirits.” So I identified with that some people believe similarly about an image as I do—the demonic bit … not so much. But as a Quaker, there is the “Light of God” within the work. 

The short of it, I am learning a lot, and Mr. Saltz’s book is good. It is approachable and entertaining.  

Beginning Again

The person who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
— Chinese Proverb

Creativity at Work
Title: October 11, 2022, 7:57 pm, Digitally Enhanced Photo, Hendricks © 2022
October 11, 2022, 7:57 pm, Digitally Enhanced Photo, Hendricks ©2022

Yes, I am beginning again. Roughly a year and a half ago, my blog of 12 years was shut down by Blue Host because it was infected with malware. I mourned. It had over two thousand images taken or created by me. Hundreds of quotes I found meaningful and helped center my meditation.

After talking to former colleagues at Minneapolis College (MCTC), I found a new host and came to WordPress. com. They offered security to me and any readers coming to ArtChangesLives(Dot)Com at a reasonable price.

In the past posts that were saved and brought back, you will find lines of code that refer to images that once resided there. I decided to keep them there for references for myself. I hope you don’t see this confusing.

My pseudonym for Second Life activities is Tap Quentin. I named my Avatar after my first boyhood crush, Bobby Quinn. I just completed uploading many of my works to Second Life’s Marketplace. I invite you to view my works at my online store, Ephemeral Traces.