Tag: personal history

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.

A Living Room Church

A Living Room Church

A personal memory about beginnings, community, and what history sometimes forgets.

Whimsical ink and watercolor drawing with a cross, house-like forms, curling vines, small figures, and a soft blue-violet wash suggesting shelter, spirit, and community.
**Dr. Seuss’s Heaven** — A tribute to Dr. Seuss, mixed media on paper, 2005 (approx. 6 × 9 in.) — A small drawing about the rhythm of life

 

There are stories that get polished over time, and stories that quietly disappear.

I’ve carried one of those quieter stories for years.

Long before MCC became what it is in Minnesota, there was a small gathering of us — a core group of gay men and friends trying to build spiritual community when such spaces were rare.

The original services were held in our living room on the 3400 block of Pillsbury Avenue South in Minneapolis.

Word spread by mouth. People came. We worshiped weekly. There were picnics, gatherings, friendship, and a real sense that something important was being born. The worship had a Catholic tone. It was heartfelt, searching, and deeply communal.

There were many involved — names I remember, and names I’ve lost — but I remember the spirit clearly.

Then life moved on. Michael and I joined the Air Force, and I was stationed in California. MCC continued to grow. It moved beyond our living room, then into other spaces, eventually finding a home at the Minneapolis Friends Meeting House.

That was also how I first encountered Quakerism — another thread that would shape my life.

I’ll admit: over the years I sometimes felt forgotten, as though those early beginnings had faded from memory. But memory is a tricky thing. Institutions grow, stories simplify, and humble beginnings can disappear into history.

What remains for me is gratitude that I got to witness — and in some small way help hold — the beginning of something that mattered.

And I was deeply happy to see it grow.

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.