Doug Simon is Plein Air Gallery featured artist of May

By Keri Luiz
Assistant Editor

By day, Doug Simon is a physical and massage therapist with his own practice in Lafayette.

But between working hours, his first love, and training, is in painting.

“When I paint, it’s between working a regular job,” said Simon, this month’s featured artist at the Benicia Plein Air Gallery. “Lately I’ve been getting up early and painting an hour or two before I go to the office.”

The Wilkes Barre, Pa. native has always loved art. When he was a kid he built models, painted, sculpted, drew — “whatever it was, it was my thing,” he said.

But it wasn’t until college that he started to seriously pursue his passion. “I took an art course because I was doing very poorly in my organic chemistry class. I dropped it and I had to keep up my credits to get my financial aid.

“I took this studio course, and I was really encouraged by the art teacher. He thought my first painting was incredible.”

Simon noticed something else: “I was happy doing it,” he said.

He moved to California after art school and decided to check out the Bay Area in early summer 1986.

“Within a week I saw an art show up here, I saw a concert at the Greek (Theater, at UC-Berkeley). That’s what did it.” That week he got a job at a jewelry manufacturing company in Concord.

That job led, indirectly, to his current profession. Jewelry making can take its toll physically: artisans can spend hours hunched over their work. “I started getting these knots in my shoulders, and headaches. I was not painting at night because my eyes started to get blurry from all that close work.”

A neighbor suggested Simon get a massage. “It was just amazing. It was the night of the earthquake, ‘89 Loma Prieta. I was on my way to the appointment and the sidewalk started buckling and everything.

“It was just like an epiphany,” he said.

Simon soon got his certification in massage therapy. He finds it a rewarding career, he said, “because it affords me the dream of continuing my quest to continue the artistry. I don’t think I’m going to be an artist, I feel like an artist. To feel like that you have to have the time and the money to continue to paint.”

And paint he does. After moving to Benicia two and a half years ago, he said, “my studio is where I live. If I get inspired at night, I can just get up and turn around and start painting.

“I don’t have to drive an hour or so to get to a studio where all of a sudden it’s supposed to evoke this creative energy. That’s not the way I operate. I feel like it’s all around me, I just have to be prepared for it to come out and have the energy to do something about it.”

Working in oils, he got to know Benicia artists Jerrold Turner and Terry Hughes, well-known plein air painters, and he began experimenting with different methods in achieving his colorful, strongly composed work.

“When I came to Benicia, and I met Jerry and Terry, I liked the idea of laying down the paint with the knife, not being so specific,” Simon said.

“Using thicker paint became more expressive. I like the feeling of texture now. I like making paintings that almost look like they’re relief sculpture coming off the canvas. It’s fun to do that (paint at a scene) with another painter, see what two different things come out of the same scene, or we have a regular group (Da Group) that goes out and sometimes you’ll see three or four people paint the same scene.”

Simon has been painting outdoors since his art school days, but “when I met this group, the plein air painters, I thought, ‘I remember doing that stuff. I love doing that.’”

If You Go
The public is invited to view the work of Doug Simon at an evening reception at the Benicia Plein Air Gallery, 307 First St., on Saturday from 5-7 p.m.