Steve Davis might begin with an object like an old wooden toolbox, a rusty metal shrimp basket or an antique metal bath tub. Then he takes his personal collection of sun-bleached seashells or sanddollars and creates intricate patterns by suspending them from the old containers using transparent fishing line. Or, he might neatly arrange them within the crevices and symmetrical spaces that some objects offer. Either way, with his suburb craftsmanship and keen sense of design the results are spectacular!

With these unique materials and techniques Davis found a slice of his creative identity that he only guessed he possessed during his 30 years owning upscale women's clothing shops in San Antonio. In that time, however, his favorite escape was always Port Aransas – where he now calls home.

Steve Davis has always enjoyed beachcombing and developed a love for the complexities, colors and textures of shells. Now his collection fills his studio from floor to ceiling. His working space is packed with boxes of shells, old coffee cans, musical instruments, pulleys, buckets, wooden boxes, bird cages, wooden tennis rackets and crutches – about anything he might someday want to use in his work.

In 1994 Davis gave up his San Antonio business and moved to Houston to work at a contemporary art gallery. That was a new beginning for him. "Certain artists we represented broadened my horizon," Davis said, "They made me see things from a new perspective." From that exposure he realized how he could transform his love of time-weathered stuff from the junk stores, and nature-weathered stuff from the beach, into art that was uniquely his.

The first piece he sold was an old rusty bucket with a pattern of suspended sanddollars. It was quickly purchased by a collector for $500. "I was unknown!" he said, still marveling at the sale.
Davis might use hundreds of shells in a single work. He once used 396 sandollars inside a rustic, wooden toolbox. "I stare at containers and think about what I might do with them," Davis said. To allow the viewer as natural a response as possible he doesn't title his works other than by a simple description such as, "Shrimp Basket.”