About

“Perhaps it is the limitations of working with paint on canvas that challenges me to explore liminal tensions between natural and urban spaces — a view across a street, a passing scene from a highway, the ephemeral nature of light. For the artist, it is the play between these things which reveals the mystery of being.”

I work with traditional support materials including linen, cotton, board and wood, using several coats of gesso or an oil-based ground. Most of the subject matter is derived and simplified from observed and common scenes.

Until the closing of Notre Dame College, William Reed Simon was an Associate Professor and head of the Fine Arts Department there, teaching studio art, digital imaging and graphic design. In 2001 he earned an MFA in Painting from Pratt Institute, with a minor in Art History through the “Pratt in Venice” program, and he also studied Visual Communication in Manhattan. He received his BFA in Painting from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1981, focusing on portraiture, figure drawing and printmaking.

As an art educator, Reed has taught 2D art and design at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Kent State University, Cleveland State University, the Cleveland Institute of Art and Cuyahoga Community College. He is a member of the Nicholas B. White Gallery at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights.

Reed is also a professional jazz violinist. And member of the Cleveland Pops Orchestra. Rded helped found the French swing-era band Hot Djang!, and the eclectic blues, jazz, country Bent String band and has been a soloist with the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra, has performed with Nuage Rhythms in Pittsburgh and Detroit, and continues to play around Cleveland, including at the Paris Room Bistro.