HOT SPRINGS — Hot Springs artists Gary Simmons and Richard Stephens refer to their upcoming exhibit at the Hot Springs Convention Center as an honor.
“I think of the exhibition as an honor from the city of Hot Springs and an opportunity to share work that is important to me — some of it old, some new,” said Simmons, 78.
Stephens, 73, said he is “honored, first, to be showing with Gary, but also honored that the convention center and Visit Hot Springs have asked us to exhibit again.”
Simmons and Stephens first showed their work at the convention center not long after it was built in 1998.
Their upcoming exhibit will open with a reception from 5-7 p.m. Tuesday. The public is invited, and there is no admission charge.
The exhibit, Pen and Paint: The Art of Gary Simmons and Richard Stephens, will remain on display until Jan. 3. Mary Zunick, cultural affairs manager for Visit Hot Springs and curator of the show, said the exhibit may be viewed during business hours at the convention center.
“Gary and Richard wonderfully represent the highly regarded Hot Springs arts community as artists who are known nationwide for the quality and imagination of their work,” Zunick said. “Our convention center already has a widely known reputation for its permanent display of dozens of artworks that are enjoyed by our residents, as well as those who attend meetings and events in the center and Bank OZK Arena.”
Each artist will display 45 pieces of his art in the show.
“Showing together again with Richard is an honor in itself. I admire his work and, even more, admire him as a person and as a friend,” Simmons said.
“We have traveled many roads together in our art careers and have shared an amazing amount of influence and growth together. We are soul mates in the sincerest sense of the word. Our sharing has included shows, commercial projects, team teaching and substitutions for one another in certain occasions,” he said.
“We have been in constant contact with a working association since 1974. With Thad Flenniken, we are the other two who formed a life drawing group and have promoted it since 1976. It is a deep and very personal relationship that has had art as the enduring link between us,” Simmons said.
“Richard is certainly headed for ever more success teaching his workshops. For me, it is more about tending to my personal efforts in order to learn more about media and to explore some of the many threads I have started to unravel but never finished,” Simmons said.
“I am less concerned about recognition than I am about the personal satisfaction of producing work that pleases me and meets the standards of my peers. I still teach occasionally and always enjoy it, but even more so, when I am teamed with Richard and we can present a unique combination of skills and instruction,” Simmons said.
“The show feels like a retrospective that includes older work, work that I have kept for myself and family, and some new work that points to the areas I am exploring at this age,” he said. “I am incredibly honored and appreciative of the recognition and opportunity that Steven Arrison has offered us. It is important for the arts and the city to come together in venues like the convention center.
“I also think Mary Zunick earns a lot of credit for her support and promotion of the arts in Hot Springs, and particularly in this venture with Richard and me. It feels like coming home.”
Stephens said all of his work in the show will be watercolors.
“Gary will have a combination of pen and ink, charcoal, pastel, oil and watercolor,” Stephens said.
“We are showing some old and some new things, even some we have borrowed back from patrons who have purchased art from us. We are also showing art that we have held back for ourselves … not sold … that is special to us,” he said.
“It will be interesting to see such a large body of work presented in this professional setting,” said Stephens, who said he has “a full workshop schedule for the next two years.”
“And Gary and I will be doing at least two of our drawing/watercolor team-teaching workshops in the next couple of years,” Stephens said.
Simmons, who is originally from Illinois, and Stephens, who is a native of Hot Springs, met in 1974.
Simmons, a nationally recognized pen-and-ink artist, began drawing science illustrations as a student worker in the zoology department at Southern Illinois University. After acquiring bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English and American literature and a doctorate in instructional systems technology, he worked for the University of Arkansas until beginning his career as a freelance artist in 1976. He taught art at Henderson State University from 1991 until his retirement as professor emeritus in 2013.
In 1992, after two years of teaching national pen-and-ink seminars for Rapidograph, the manufacturer of Simmons’ pens, he released The Technical Pen: Techniques for Artists, published by New York’s Watson-Guptill Publishers and recently reissued by Echo Point Books of Vermont.
Stephens graduated from Hot Springs High School in 1964 and earned a bachelor’s degree in art from Arkansas State Teachers College (now the University of Central Arkansas) in 1969.
After serving in the Army as an illustrator, Stephens began his professional career in 1971 with a design firm in Little Rock. Three years later, he opened his own graphic-design studio in Hot Springs. He continues to provide design and production services for a wide range of commercial accounts.
Having been introduced to the medium in college, Stephens rediscovered transparent watercolor in the early 1990s. His works have won national awards and earned him signature-member status in several major watercolor societies. For the past several years, Stephens has shared his passion for the medium by conducting painting workshops around the country.
Stephens and Simmons recently won honors in the 49th annual Mid-Southern Watercolorists Juried Exhibition in April in Little Rock; they also won honors in the 2018 MSW juried exhibition, also held in Little Rock. While Stephens has been using watercolor as his main medium for many years, Simmons first tried his hand with the art form in 2017 and won a “first-timer” award at the MSW show that year.
Both have also been accepted into Small Works on Paper Touring Exhibitions during the past several years.
For more information on the upcoming exhibit at the Hot Springs Convention Center, call Zunick at (501) 321-2027.