Walking on air

By ANDREW MCGINN
a.mcginn@beeherald.com

Tony Sims admittedly “hemmed and hawed a little” when recently asked to display his artwork at Home State Bank.

“I don’t really do family style art,” confessed Sims, a 43-year-old airbrush artist who inhabits a world of comics, sci-fi, fantasy, tattoos and motorcycles.

“I’m picturing little old ladies,” he added.

Nothing in his portfolio, it would seem, screamed “member FDIC.”

And that’s when he hit on the idea to lend Home State Bank portraits of comicdom’s most notorious bank robber: The Joker.

It was, as Commissioner Gordon in the 1966 “Batman” TV series might say, an artistic statement of devilish proportions.

“It’s hanging bank robbers in a bank,” Sims reasoned.

There they hang, watching over your every deposit — four incarnations of the clown prince of crime, from Cesar Romero’s loopy Joker of the ’60s to Jared Leto’s present-day super-gangsta.

Just to show he’s not completely psycho himself, Sims also painted their respective foils, from Adam West’s campy Caped Crusader to the Dark Knight of today as portrayed by Ben Affleck.

Now the really funny part: No other display of art at Home State has attracted this level of attention.

“They say this is one of the most talked-about things,” said Roger Aegerter, the local artist and retired educator who’s curated the revolving space for Home State since 2014. “People think it’s amazing.

“And it is.”

Bank President Sid Jones echoed that.

“The public is just intrigued by them,” Jones said of the portraits.

Sims, who lives and works in Dana (pop. 71) — hence the name of his business, Middle of Nowhere Studio — now freely admits that maybe he underestimated the public.

“It’s gotten surprisingly good reviews,” Sims said, still stunned.

“Maybe I’m still gun-shy from youth.”

A 1991 graduate of East Greene High School, Sims is young enough to see comic culture emerge as a multibillion-dollar business empire, but old enough to still feel less than as an artist for wanting to paint his version of a skull engulfed in flames. (That would be the Marvel Comics character Ghost Rider.)

“If it’s not their world, I get the whole, ‘You should get a real job,’ ” Sims explained, standing inside his studio, a shed with tarp-covered walls at the end of a dead-end street.

The art world itself has long sent mixed messages to comic artists.

Andy Warhol could’ve painted the Batman logo and it would sell for $60 million, while the artists who actually toiled on behalf of DC Comics bringing Batman to life often end up receiving financial and medical assistance from The Hero Initiative, a nonprofit organization.

Being an airbrush artist on top of it all comes with its own set of hang-ups.

In fact, if there’s a hierarchy of fine art, airbrush artists are still somewhere between guys who paint on velvet and Thomas Kinkade.

“We’re the redheaded stepchildren,” Sims joked.

He frankly found it easier to just tell people he was an “independent contractor” after leaving his job as a Volkswagen mechanic in 2010 to pursue art full-time.

“I’d never say the word ‘artist’ for the longest time,” he said.

The irony is that Sims is one of the few artists, particularly in Greene County, getting paid to work.

Motorcyclists are increasingly turning to Sims to adorn their bikes with custom art.

Come riding season this year, two more bikes will hit area streets — one with a skeleton viking theme and one with a “Star Wars” motif.

Simply put, geek culture is now American culture.

If you don’t think a skull peeking out from Boba Fett’s helmet isn’t as sweet as all get out, it’s no longer a matter of being right or wrong.

You’re just un-American.

“I just like making pictures,” Sims said. “I like the reaction I get.”

His clients like the reaction as well.

Angie Hueser, of Jefferson, reached out to Sims to give her Harley 883 a one-of-a-kind look.

“I asked him if he thought he could paint my bike tie-dye,” Hueser said. “He seemed more unsure of himself than I was. I truly had complete confidence in him.

“I told him I wanted a pink base for the tie dye. That’s it. It turned out even more amazing than I ever imagined. I get compliments everywhere I go.”

It’s hoped that word of mouth will in turn lead to a steadier stream of income.

“I just keep putting stuff out there the best I can,” Sims said.

Painting a full bike — which he does in pieces — takes up to three weeks.

Sims also is a regular fixture at comic conventions, where he sells prints of his work.

Those who knew Sims growing up in Grand Junction aren’t likely to be surprised he found this kind of niche for himself.

“I wasted my entire high school experience because I was doodling and drawing,” he said.

“He just kind of skimmed by,” affirmed wife Mandy, a 1994 East Greene grad who serves as Dana’s mayor.

They now have three kids and a grandchild together.

To be fair, Tony Sims — who, for his own part, serves as a city councilman in Dana — only ever wanted to follow in the bootsteps of his father, Richard, a Grand Junction native and career soldier in the Army who served three tours in Vietnam as a helicopter door gunner.

Asthma, however, kept Tony Sims from being able to join the Army.

The Navy, too.

“I had a few friends,” he recalled, “but I wasn’t part of any clique.

“I was kind of the ghost in the hallway.”

His love of comic art — particularly the work of Marvel artist Mike Zeck, who remains best known for designing the black costume worn by Spider-Man in the ’80s — planted a seed that now finally is bearing fruit.

Aegerter was Sims’ art teacher at East Greene, and it was Aegerter who tapped Sims more than 25 years later to showcase some of his airbrush work at the bank.

“I can’t take any credit,” Aegerter said, “because we didn’t do any airbrush stuff.”

Entirely self-taught — give or take some YouTube videos — Sims received his first airbrush for Christmas in the late ’90s.

“How the hell do people make pictures with these things?” he remembers asking himself after botching an early attempt to airbrush the Crow on a T-shirt.

“There is a learning curve.”

“I’m still making bad pieces of art,” Sims added, humbly.

But when it’s good, no one seems more surprised than Sims.

“I have no idea who did that. The hand came out so well,” he joked, pointing in his studio to the finely detailed hand on an airbrushed portrait of Finnish model and tattoo artist Sara Fabel.

“You hit a lucky groove,” he continued, “and you’re like, ‘How the hell did I do that?’ ”

The detail alone on his portrait of “Batman” actor Cesar Romero would’ve undoubtedly inspired Burt Ward’s Robin to shout, “Holy anal–retentiveness!”

Through the Joker’s white makeup you can plainly see the mustache Romero so stubbornly refused to shave in real life.

To Sims, that level of detail is merely just him doing due diligence as a fanboy.

“If I went to a convention and didn’t have the mustache, I’d get lynched,” he said.

Wife Mandy believes there’s something more to her husband’s work.

“He doesn’t think it’s a gift or talent,” she said. “But it is.”

Sims is coming around, too.

To start with, he’s no longer an “independent contractor.”

“Now I’m proud to say artist,” he said.