Anyone familiar with Istanbul will understand why so many of Simon's paintings home in on the Bosphorus, its' constantly changing light both day and night and the variety of sea traffic constantly vying for passage.
"During the eight years we had a studio in Uskudar we were lucky to have been befriended by Shefik Pehlivan (Shefik the wrestler) who in his later years had become a fisherman. Shefik owned a beautifull, small, wooden fishing boat with an extremely noisey in-board motor. He was a true gentleman who took pride in whatever he did. We would tour the many, once small, villages and inlets from the Golden Horn to the Black Sea with Shefik standing with aplombe at the helm describing what was once great and what was now not."
Sadly Shefik died in the early 1990's without ever seeing one of Simon's paintings.

Shefiks Boat