The Artist Behind the Art: Walker debuts Art Center lecture series

Feb. 1—VALDOSTA — The world is a canvas and Steven S. Walker has made his mark.

The Hahira artist was the inaugural speaker for the Annette Howell Turner Center for the Arts Artists Lecture Series, an hour-long discourse where artists share their journeys and follow up with a Q&A.

Walker pitched the idea for the series to Bill Shenton, curator for the Turner Center, who immediately appointed Walker to give the first lecture.

"We have wonderful guest artists as part of our Turner Center family here who can share their works and inspiring stories," Shenton said at the lecture.

Walker came up with the idea for similar reasons.

"I actually thought it was important for the fact that people need to know the story behind artists and their work so that they can actually appreciate the art and what had to be done or what they went through to get from A to B," he said.

Walker hadn't always been a staple in the South Georgia art community, having grown up in Virginia and receiving his art education at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he told the crowd he was served a "hefty slice of humble pie."

"Now, up until this point, you have to realize that in high school, middle school, elementary, I was the best artist in my class. I was the best in my high school. Well, at VCU, it turned out everybody was the best in their high school. and I got a lot of, you know, a rude awakening in terms of, 'OK, you're not that good,'" he said.

This would serve as another transition, as he was used to illustrating with dry mediums such as charcoal, graphite and colored pencils. Painting was uncharted territory.

Walker recalled his first "disastrous" assignment.

"So I got a whole critique. and my teacher called me out on it and he said, you know, the only thing that looks like you looked at a picture from him was the stairs. and he was right. That was the only thing I looked at, everything else was made up," he said.

"He called me out and I just had to go with it. ... So I decided I was going to paint every day for two hours in addition to my homework and that's what I did."

After improving his technique and graduating from VCU, Walker faced a daunting post-graduate reality: jobs weren't lined up.

While holding down a job as a framer at arts and crafts chain Ben Franklin's, he continued honing his craft by making self-promo pieces.

"That's one thing I remember (from school), you have to keep promoting yourself. Especially when you're a freelance illustrator, you just have to put your stuff out there. So I would go to Barnes and Noble books ... because I wanted to do editorial illustration. So I would look at all the magazines and write down the art directors name and contact information, create my own list and then have a piece like this printed on a postcard and just mail them out."

The strategy afforded him several opportunities such as displaying his work at the National Cherry Blossom Festival.

Afterward, dinner with a former professor took him down the path of higher education again, this time pursuing his master's degree at Marywood University, which presented him with other opportunities: teaching up-and-coming artists as well as painting artwork for the Air Force, which took him to New Jersey, California, Belize and Kyrgyzstan.

"They're probably hanging up in somebody's office or in the Pentagon."

MU was also where he met his wife, Evelyn, whose own career path took her to Valdosta State University and relocated the Walkers to South Georgia in 2016.

Since, Walker has had numerous pieces featured at the Turner Center, such as his painting of King's Grill, which he painted in a 2017 plein air event in Downtown Valdosta.

Walker and artist Mary VanLandingham went on to become category winners at Turner Center's annual Spring Into Art competition.

With his wife, Walker has designed murals for the Turner Center's Art Park. He and his wife outlined images on the fence near the park's pavilion for community members to paint.

His work hasn't stopped at South Georgia, as he has gallery representation across the country, including the Olmstead Gallery in Atlanta, the Howard Mandville Gallery in Woodinville, Wash., and Wheehouse Art in Louisville, Ky.

Walker's work can be viewed at stevenwalkerstudios.com. It is also available on Instagram or Facebook. and in his current Turner Center exhibit.