Admit it, you love to spend Sundays driving around and popping into all of the open houses to see how other people live. And if you’re an artist, I bet you love visiting the studios of other artists for the very same reason.
Someone once said “We’re happy until we begin to compare,” and so it goes with studio visits: “Wow, wish I had a space this big.” In spite of all the covetous feelings generated, I ultimately find that looking at an artist’s studio space provides far more inspiration than envy. So I shall try to share more of my studio pop-ins with fellow artists by starting with my recent visit to Peter Sims, accompanied by my artist friend Cindy Suriyani..
Sims has a rather large space in Ventura that he rents as a studio. This is situated not far from his half-acre home in Ojai that includes a special court for playing boule. In fact, Cindy and I spent much time throwing boules over there, pretending that we were 19th century artists working in Southern France. Part of this fantasy included watching Sims’ beloved dog Pepe perpetually chase a rooster around his yard.
The studio has a small reception area, a loft, and a bathroom. The paint storage racks are filled with row upon row of well organized Golden acrylic jars, and his paintings- averaging doorway sizes- are all neatly lined up against the studio walls; even his few haphazard piles seem somehow organized.
There’s nothing compromising about Sims’ studio and the same holds true for his art. I’ve known Sims for a number of years and what struck me from the moment I first met him was his dedication to his art. It’s his calling and he responds to it with a fierce sort of tenacity. Once he digs into a painting his focus is unrelenting. If his painting needs fifty coats of paint and several months to complete, it matters little to him. He will not relinquish a work until he deems it complete.
One can trace his work to the artist Kasimir Malevich who wrote a 1915 Manifesto, “From Cubism to Suprematism,” a sort of next developmental step from “Cubism” and “Futurism.” Supermatism was an attempt to visually remove all art-idea, concepts or images to create a barren landscape where only feelings were perceived. Clutter was to be removed. It was the non-objective feelings that Malevich strove for, and he believed the best way to achieve this was by putting geometric shapes in the midst of emptiness.
Glancing at Malevich’s 1915 “Four Squares” painting, then looking at Sims’ “Fuji Lotus #3” painting, you instantly see the same goals in both works. For Sims, the journey goes beyond Malevich in that Malevich’s squares are colored in black and white while Sims’ consist of various bright hues that would gladden the hearts of Johannes Itten and Joseph Albers. On top of this very conscious color play, Sims develops surface textures to a high degree of proficiency,
His non-objective works all originate from everyday found objects like color bar codes on packages, Post It Notes, children’s toys or games, etc. These objects are invariably far smaller in actual scale than what he ultimately metamorphoses into a new identity onto his canvases.
Sims is particularly proud of his recent painting titled “Gobelin,” which depicts a small area of a found patterned or quilt like textile that was created by Gunta Stolzl, once head of the Bahaus textile department. You probably thought I was kidding about Sim’s tenacity; well, he’s got at least 14 gallons of paint on this canvas which weighs in somewhere around 300 pounds.
A close look at “Gobelin” reaffirms the faithful reproduction of Gunta Stolzl’s pattern but again, through his colorations and surface treatment, it has obtained a completely new identity, a new life so to speak. The surface treatment varies throughout the work from super smooth, pristine, meticulously laid on paint to sculpturally dimensional sections just as meticulously handled. The painting has a rather topographical look to it: rolling Grant Wood hills separated by gentle valleys. Any lighting changes the painting’s appearance which, to Cindy, and me was a dynamic plus; wouldn’t you guess that Sims was only happy with it when the lighting conditions were “just so”?
I usually end up making some sort of a faux pas on any given visit and this one was no exception. It was pointed out to me that I left the toilet seat up after use. Can’t you just imagine what pain I will cause other artists?
Some of Sims paintings will soon be on exhibit at Cardwell-Jimmerson Gallery in Culver City, a must see event.