Walkman:
Gary Simmons on the virtues of urban wandering

Graffiti inspires me all the time. Being an ex-writer myself, I’m drawn to the way tags layer over each other and sometimes they get cleaned. Walking in New York is where my poster pieces come from, that aesthetic of overlapping and overlaying things.

Things from the street have made their way into my work. A discarded red crate became an early speaker sample construction.

Gleason’s Gym has a huge effect for me. It has beaten-up hanging heavy bags that for me are beautiful sculptural objects. All the boxers have their own locker. I love the way they save and put up pictures of themselves, that configuration on the lockers. I could do an entire show just based on Gleason’s Gym.

I love the old font kind of thing, the way the signage works. It has a Wild West vibe to it.

The structure of stadiums—there’s an awe you get when you come down the tunnels and enter with an emerald field in front of you and the game isn’t even played yet. Hopes and dreams played out on fields. They’re almost like a modern day Coliseum. They have so much symbolism for me that I keep pictures of stadiums around all the time.

I was starting to make connections between sky constellations and dance, the romantic idea between dance and the stars. The constellation found its way into a sketchbook. I find some little thing in a book somewhere and tape it in and start thinking about it like that. It's literally my brain on paper.