Simon's Art, Pure and Simple

Simon Hardeveld never set out to be an artist. "I was a chef," he says in his thick Charles Boyer French accent. "Always a chef. I never thought to be an artist."

But life has a way of overtaking carefully made plans and now the French expatriate is painting mornings, noon, and night trying to keep up with demand for his brightly-colored whimsical signs. Hardeveld's work, always prominently signed "Simon," is seen all over town, often in popular cafes such as Coffee and Company in Lakeview and Lolas on Esplanade Avenue. His food signs are much sought after, the prices of caffe lattes, sandwiches and paellas made memorable and charming with Hardeveld's signature squiggles and mini-starbursts. It's a style that is usually labeled naïve, outsider or folk art. Unlike many of the commercial practitioners hoping to cash in one the popularity of untrained artists, Hardeveld comes by his naïve label honestly. When he started painting signs a few years ago he didn't have any idea that what he was doing was a style or a school of art.

I needed a sign so I painted one," is how it all started, says Hardeveld, who has lived in New Orleans for five years. He was the chef at a grill in Metairie that wasn't doing too well. He made signs for the caffe but it didn't help.

"The customers would buy a sign that said "Beer" or "Hamburger" but not food!" he says, laughing at the memory.

Hardeveld began to spend more time making signs and adding cheerful designs such as grinning black cats, alligators, smiling young women and other imagery. First, the signs sold through Bush Antiques where his wife, Marie, works. In February, Hardeveld opened his own gallery. Simon's of New Orleans, in a rapidly gentrifying stretch of Magazine Street. In addition to his folk art, Hardeveld also stocks one-of-a-kind pieces of handmade Louisiana furniture and decorative items that appeal to him from vases to lamps and beyond. He refinishes the furniture (mostly tables and chests) himself. The affable Hardeveld is just as pleased to talk about his refinishing techniques as his folk art. Running the gallery, he says, is a great pleasure for him. He's only open three days a week, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, spending the rest of the week at his home workshop.

"I love contact with the people," he says with unrestrained affection. "They give me the energy to spend the other four days painting."

Hardeveld is happy to accept commissions and has done several portraits of dogs for their proud owners. He continues to do signs for caffes and seems open to just about anything with his art. But he does have firm ideas about his work. First of all, he is untrained and plans to say that way.

"I just do it," Hardeveld of his paintings. "I think of it and I do it."

Secondly, he is completely satisfied with his materials. He uses only plywood or tin to paint on and his paint, always oil, and brushes come from Ace Hardware.

Actually , he prefers to find his painting materials, fishing plywood and tin out of rubbish piles. Hardeveld enjoys painting to the size that he finds. He has several outsize tin pieces (more than five feet tall) that he created when the big pieces of tin came his way.

Hardeveld, who trained as a chef in his native Cannes, and came to the United States 12 years ago, doesn't miss his life in restaurants at all.

"No! Never!" he says of the possibility of returning to the culinary world.

"When I go into a restaurant now I feel sorry for the people who work there. It is like slavery! They are slaves to the kitchen!"

Hardeveld, now liberated from the kitchen, might one day expand to the French Quarter, but for now is happy to divide his time between his workshop and the gallery on Magazine Street.

"This is just what I want," he says.

Originally appeared in Vive la Vie magazine, March 1999. Reprinted by permission

Photography ©1999, Scott Saltzman
Story Written by Harriet Swift

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