James R. Hendrickson

During childhood my father was an electrical contractor who helped build everything from Kmart stores to missile silos. Our family spent many hours moving from one job site to the next. At the age of then through fifteen my magic kingdom in the backseat of my dad's red Chevrolet convertible was filled with unfolded maps and colored postcards from rest stop that we had stopped at. You could even say out of the boredom or freedom of the road came a kind of insight about who we were as a nation of people and not just as a government (you will note the two are not always the same).

In the past 50 years since then, I have found that the roots of my art are not governed by any art moment that you'll find on the walls of any art gallery, but by the lines of interstate highways and the many rest stops, gas stations, and fast food restaurants that lined the roadside. Looking back over the years spent on those interstate highways, the fine line between imagination and what really took place is sometimes now a passing blur to me. Images of 244 moving through the empty darkness towards an isolated bus stop. At the same time a man stands uneasily in the pool of light from the gas station pumps. He keeps looking into the darkness as if he is waiting for someone or something to happen.

To this day I can see myself as that awkward teenage boy standing in a half-forgotten waiting room looking out that dusty window somewhere between here and there.