Interview With John Walker
Why have you decided to become an artist? Was there a defining moment in your life when you knew you were an artist?
Like so many others I was the kid always drawing and painting. I had a lot of other interests growing up including biology, paleontology, and astronomy. But everything came back to art in some way. For example I was fascinated by dinosaurs and fossil hunting but spent as much time drawing dinos and even the fossils I found as anything else. I had many interests but my true love was art.
What’s your background? Do you have a formal art education or are you self taught?
My father was an artist, first a technical illustrator, then a photo retoucher. He worked at a large full service studio in Chicago but also had a studio at home where he worked on commercial jobs in the evenings and painting personal pieces when he had spare time. My parents hoped I would train in science or medicine and I didn’t take my first art class until college. I even thought of becoming a medical illustrator which would combine the disciplines. I took liberal arts courses at the College of DuPage for two years, but seeing a student show at The American Academy of Art convinced me that was the route I should take. I attended for two years and received a scholarship for a third. No internet back then but lots of art books to learn from including a favorite by one of today’s greatest painters Burt Silverman. I practiced constantly then, still try to today.
What’s a key memory from your childhood?
Flipping through my older siblings high school biology textbook with its human body dissection pages is one. These were illustrations printed on clear plastic pages so the reader could flip them over and reveal the next inner layer of the body. I was absolutely fascinated. I still have the book and it fascinates me to this day. I also remember sitting at my old wooden drafting table late one night, my room lit only by a swing arm table lamp, scratching away at an art school assignment, and thinking, “This is what I was meant to do.” A youthful romantic moment I suppose but so far I’ve managed to keep at it.
What jobs have you done other than being an artist?
I cut lawns as a kid and worked factory jobs and a retail job in college. Most everything after that has been art related. When I graduated art school we were in an economic downturn and full time art positions were scarce. So I freelanced. My first job was line art for the Sears catalog; how to measure for draperies. Not glamorous but for a kid fresh out of art school the money seemed incredibly good. I landed freelancer’s space at an art studio where I learned a simple equation; the more things you could do, the busier you stayed, and the more money you earned. I attempted everything they would trust me with from marker comps to product renderings. Being versatile soon landed me a job as a staff illustrator at a design firm. One of my first assignments was an airbrush job for the firm’s important new client. It was art for a fast food chain’s kid’s meal box. Despite my dad being a photo retoucher, and using an airbrush daily, I had never used one in my life. Somehow I neglected to mention that to the art director. One long weekend of sleepless, heart stopping, adventurous learning on the job later, and I had successfully completed the work. I went on to do a lot of airbrush projects after that. The illustration market began to rapidly shrink around 2000. A mainstay client was lost after being bought by a larger agency and my rep coincidentally decided to quit the business. I began airbrushing motorcycle gas tank and fender sets to fill in the gaps. My first job was repainting a Harley tank depicting a flowing American flag wrapped all around the tank. The client wasn’t happy with the first guy’s artwork so I was asked to redo it. He let me know the deadline was tight and oh by the way he was a former Hell’s Angel. Incentive I never heard from my advertising clients. But he loved my work, we got along great, and he became a repeat customer. I also did some interior painting; faux finishing, a mural or two, and some decorative plaster work along the way. A friend later steered me to product concept and rendering for a collectibles company and I landed some children’s book art. One of those projects was illustrating a booklet discussing the background of Stonehenge for a kid’s model set. It was a minor item but a great project with one painting accepted into Spectrum #15. Between raising a family and illustration projects I did very few personal pieces. In 2005 I took advantage of a slow period to paint a portrait of my daughter. I realized then how much I missed painting for painting’s sake. It rekindled the flame and I began working on a series of portraits over the next few years with some success. I had work accepted into the first three AcrylicWorks annuals, won Best in Show at the Richeson 75 Portrait and Figure Competition, and received the National Society of Painters in Casein and Acrylic award from judge Burton Silverman. An incredible honor to receive and I felt like I’d come full circle. Around 2014 I felt my work becoming stale, too wrote. It lacked the inventive spirit of my art school days. So I began to head off in another direction becoming more imaginative and soon began my Dankquart reliquary series. The vibe of creative excitement I experienced in art school had returned.
What themes do you find most interesting?
I’ve recently become somewhat retrospective, thinking about my work and the themes running through it. Some things about my work were obvious, for example I like to tell stories. One reason I wanted to be an illustrator was the chance to tell a tale with painting. Duality is another, astrology buffs might credit that to my Libra birth sign. And I enjoy making work that has a connection to history, imagined history that is. But I’ve lately realized how the theme of layers, with various meanings, runs so strongly through my work. Layers in terms of actual layers of paint, the depiction of physical layers, masks concealing layers, layers of interpretation, etc. I blame it all on that biology textbook and its wonderful layered pages. Lately I’ve been working on pieces based on ideas of things being ignored or passed by, the undeniably obvious existing unnoticed. I just completed a new painting called , “A Message From the Oracle” in which a small white rabbit is encountering a long ignored, possibly defunct, but absolutely huge object, (a large head), which appears to be communicating some type of message. Exactly what that message is, if it matters, and if anyone will do anything about it if it does, I leave for the viewer to decide.
What memorable responses have you had to your work?
I’ve done a couple of portraits for people of loved ones that have passed. Seeing a tear come to their eyes as they reconnect via a painting I’ve created is a pretty powerful moment. I also love hearing from people who tell me they’ve come back to my work over and over always finding something new to see. It’s good to know they experience a depth beyond the initial impression. Layers.
Born: 1957
School: College of DuPage, Wheaton, IL - American Academy of Art, Chicago IL.
Select Publications:
AcrylicWorks: Best of Acrylic Painting vols 1,2,3.
Spectrum #15 The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art Acrylic Artist magazine, fall 2014
Hey! Deluxe #4 magazine (France)
Lives and works in a suburb west of Chicago, IL.