ARTIST STATEMENT

"Your own life while it's happening to you never has any atmosphere until it's a memory"
ANDY WARHOL


Everyone has their own interests and influences. With artists this manifest itself in their artwork. If you want to know the influences in my work it's simple, look at a map of San Francisco and the Bay Area. Reading the names of neighborhoods like "The Haight" or "The Marina", street names like "Fillmore" and "Octavia" or town and county names like "Sausalito" and "Marin" would spark memories and images for me of those places.
I should explain that I lived in San Francisco many years ago and I started looking at maps of the city when I knew that I was moving back. Viewing the maps brought back memories of when I lived here before. I think it was then that I realized how much I had missed the area. I also realized how powerful language and the written word is and that it can be used in art to create an emotional response in viewers.
I have a certain response to my own artwork that is totally personal to my own memories and images. I hope the viewer will also experience their personal images and memories while looking.

Steven Simmons
Bay Area Artist