Hi!

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I did not want to write this. 

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I have no idea how to write a bio that’s informative without being reductive, contrived, or shorthanded. Every time I try I either end up writing between two and five nearly-coherent sentences about myself, or an essay about something entirely unrelated that I remembered, in the process of forgetting everything I’ve ever done and every place I’ve ever been...this is going to be too long. I can feel it. Who cares? Whose playbill is this? Mine. Mine.

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So with this knowledge in mind, and at extreme risk to what remains of my sanity, my name is Riley Henderson. Everyone calls me Riley, the ‘J.’ is my first initial (John), and I added it because the domain name ‘rileyhenderson.com’ was taken when I made this website, and in an effort to keep things consistent I just added it on to everything that already had my name on it, and I’m afraid there’s no changing it now. 

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I was born in Texas, but growing up among missionaries and otherwise adventurous people quickly taught me that home is something you carry within yourself - not any place, purpose, or building - and I have found myself content in many destinations, country-wide and the world over. 

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Both of my parents are artists in various capacities, and I was raised with a song in my mouth. For the longest time it was something I simply accepted as part of my landscape, until I got a little older and decisions took on a little more finality, and I came to realize a little more that I am simply not a healthy person if I am not creating something. I must write. I must sing. I thought for a while that these were just things that I did, because I had always done them, but futile attempts at literally anything else have proven to me the severity of my case. 

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I am an artist. My condition is terminal. The symptoms are damning.

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Just last week I was writing a song, and when I got stuck, my decompression was reassembling a raccoon skull I’d been degreasing (I taught myself some minor taxidermy because I thought it was cool) and putting it on display at my desk. It is sitting by my left hand as I type this, like some kind of macabre mousepad. I can often be found up in winding mountain hollows, fly fishing with homemade flies. If I am left alone in a room, eventually there will be a journal in my hand. Years of unmitigated hobbyism have rendered me a flannel-clad assortment of odd skills and existential tinkering and resulted in…this. 

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Basically, I have a problem. You’re enabling it by being here, and so I hope that you find something you like. I hope that what you see helps you see better when you look away. Lord knows, that’s all it was ever meant for. 

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I think that’s it for now. I have a resume on another page if you want some of the finer details. Let’s be real, if you’re looking at my website, you’ve probably already seen my resume. 

So there’s that. I did it. I wrote the thing. 

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Good morning, I am me, this is my website.

Enjoy!

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