Jevoid Simmons is a 40-year resident of Evanston, IL. He and his life partner (wife) Dickelle Fonda are proud parents of Seth Simmons. Seth also resides in Evanston. Simmons retired two and a half years ago after a 35-year career in management as a human resource professional. The last 17 years were spent with the Art Institute of Chicago where he served as Director of Employee Relations and Training for the School and Museum. Central to his work was policy development, conflict resolution, managerial effectiveness and diversity equity and inclusion.

Simmons considers himself to be a work in progress. Embracing retirement, his mantra, is “I’m working to be the me I’m meant to be at this time in life”. In this life segment, a good deal of his time is devoted to making art. This has been a life-long love for Simmons. Though he has worked in a number of artistic styles, he considers his current art making to be more in line with folk and primitive art. Simmons paints and carves and has exhibited his work locally at the Lorraine H. Morton Civic Center (April – October 2019); Evanston’s Noyes Cultural Art Center; the Evanston Art Center; Garrett Theological Seminary (Northwestern University); The Art Institute of Chicago and Creative Co-working Gallery.