By Anne W. Semmes
For decades, Steve Simmons, noted cable entrepreneur and advocate for education equality, while raising his five children developed an extraordinary talent as sculptor, and that sculpture is now to be seen in Simmons’ first Retrospective Exhibition in Greenwich at the Cavalier Ebanks Gallery.
You can’t miss his bright red “Love Pyramids” sculpture on Greenwich Avenue placed before the Gallery. But inside there’s a bronze elephant, as seen by his family in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, a leaping dolphin in bronze seen by the artist while kayaking off Malibu, California, and a flight of Brown Pelicans posed in their V formation, marveled at by family visits to the beaches of California and Florida.
The surprise of the extent of Simmons’ development as an artist is expressed by friend Scott Frantz. “Many of us who have known Steve for over 30 years as a very successful, yet understated, businessman, outstanding father and wonderful husband had no idea that he was an artist. Steve’s sculptures are very dynamic, thoughtful and in some cases whimsical. He is truly a great sculptor, and the world is a better place with his pieces finally on display.”
It is plain to see that Simmons has joyfully embraced his new artistic challenges since stepping away from his cable business in the 1990’s. But surely, he’s following a distinctively different artistic path from his painterly parents, the late Lyn and Robert Simmons whose Simmons paint brush became “the finest artist brush in America, used by Norman Rockwell and Andrew Wyeth who wrote him letters thanking him,” shares his son.
“My mother did a lot of beautiful pastel work. My father did oils. I tried all of those, but I couldn’t really get the fine line, so I figured I’d try sculpture,” says Simmons. So, he entered sculpture classes in Manhattan and by the fourth class, “I could actually make a lump of clay look like a human being,” he says, “and it felt good.”
His artistic process became transporting his clay pieces created in his home studio to that famous Modern Art Foundry in Queens used by many a famed sculptor. “And they would take several months taking the clay through a thousands-of-years lost wax process, which involves many steps, including creating a wax model of my clay piece which I would then have to come in and work on as well.” And then, “They take the bronze and make it look like your clay piece.”
But the classes continued. “I took courses at Silvermine out here in Connecticut. I took instruction in a studio in Los Angeles. And slowly, but surely, I learned the craft of being able to work in clay and have it come out pretty good.” Like that finely crafted bronze self-portrait of his own hand entitled, “Hand to the Sky,” and that woman’s head looking “Straight Ahead,” deep in thought, in bronze.
He continues his evolution. “So, I then evolved from doing the human form which is what most of the classes focused on, to doing smaller animals. And I really liked that quite a bit.” Yes, there’s the “Tortoise, and the “Spotted Stingray” with its graceful movement, but that aluminum “Thinking Big” acorn has special magic with its squirrel atop “thinking big.”
Then the larger animals called. He recalls inspiring visits to the Bronx Zoo, “when our kids were at school here in Greenwich. We would look at all the animals. And we were lucky enough to be able to go on safaris and see the movements and structures of animals…It was an unbelievably impressive sight. So that helped inspire me to do animals.”
Especially the giraffe, “and its beautiful structure,” and that of the elephant. So, the process became creating “a very large armature which is essentially the skeleton on which clay is applied.” And that brought, “some scary moments,” he tells, “when I had to get the large animal out of my studio in Greenwich…They had to cut the ears of the elephant off to get him through the door.” But in the end, at the Modern Art Foundry, “It really worked fine.”
Speaking to that creative process, he says, “So, I’ll get this idea for a particular shape in my head.” Like that shape of a humpback whale often on his mind. “I’ll sketch it on a sketch pad and then I’ll go back the next day and keep working on it till it is close to what I want. And then I’ll either do a model of it or do a drawing with dimensions of it. It really evolves over time.”
He credits daughter Julia with opening the door to another evolution of his art. “Dad,” she told him, “You’ve got to see a place called Storm King Art Center, which has beautiful outdoor metal sculptures.” “It blew me away,” he says, “I love this concept of taking metal and making these beautiful abstract sculptures.” A design came to him, “whimsical with metal with curves and shapes and colors. I cut out a heart in one part of it.” It’s called “Whimsy” and stands seven and a half feet tall.
“So, each of these sculptures has a story,” he tells, like the Love Pyramids. “I got this idea I’d love to make a sculpture that talks about the universal nature of love because people experience a lot of it in every culture around the world.” How about making a pyramid and put the word love in four different languages on its sides? “So, I created a wooden four foot high pyramid and wrapped it in red paper and I put the love around it. And then I said that’s not enough definitions of the word love. I want a second pyramid on top – to be end to end, and then I’ll have the word love in different languages.”
That presented a challenge requiring reaching out to “a bunch of interpreters in these different languages. I probably talked to a dozen different interpreters to make sure I was getting expert spelling. And then of course, I had to figure out what kind of typeface I wanted, what font I wanted for the words.”
It was on a visit to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, seeing a sculpture by Giacometti that he came up with the idea of his fanciful sculpture, “Lollipop Summer” seen in the Gallery. “The Giacometti had these thin figures with heads at different heights. What if I did it with lollipops, with real lollipop colors …at different heights. And it was just fun to do. I was doing this one in my garage in California- we were renting a house out there for two years- and it was a very hot night. So, I came out and some of the lollipops had melted, and I said that’s great. It’s got all these beautiful colors in the bottom. So, I just fell in love with it and had the foundry do it in fiberglass.”
Serendipity visited again with his aluminum sculpture, “Spooning.” “I was playing around with old wires and putting them in different shapes and all of a sudden the shapes formed a shape that looks like two people spooning, and I said that’s great… It’s a process of creation, experimentation, and then even when the metal is being fabricated you change your mind.”
Steve Simmons’ “A Retrospective of Sculptures” exhibition at the Cavalier Ebanks Gallery, 175 Greenwich Avenue, extends to October 5.
