“Just Coffee, Please” is one of Laura Walker’s pieces from her Funny Farm Animals series, and was inspired by a photo.
HANCEVILLE – Visitors to the Burrow Center for the Fine and Performing Arts at Wallace State Community College can enjoy the whimsy, humor and thoughtfulness of the paintings of Cullman artist Laura Willingham Walker.
Presented by The Evelyn Burrow Museum, Walker’s work is on display in the Exhibit Hall of the Burrow Center, which is open during regular campus hours Monday through Saturday. The exhibit includes pieces from Walker’s Funny Farm Animals and her North Alabama Places series.
Walker said the Funny Farm Animals series is made up of “play time” pieces she creates as reward for completing her commissioned pieces. “They’re just pure silliness,” she says of the paintings that include images of cows, sheep and other barnyard critters.
The North Alabama series consists of portraits of houses and buildings across this region of the state. She paints these when she has a little free time between orders. She said as she’s driving around the area she often stops and take photos of places that she would like to paint. Many of the paintings in this series include inspirational messages or Scripture painted within the background or hidden among trees or other elements in the artwork.
“I want to paint what appeals to me emotionally,” Walker said of what inspires her. “I want my work to have some sort of emotion, art with meaning, art with emotion, art with soul. It just needs to move me.”
Art with Soul is what Walker calls her business. Married with three children, said she’s blessed in that she is able to focus on her art. She travels about four to five times a year to art shows, though she expects to be a little busier than that next year. When she’s not painting, she home schools two of her three children who range in age from 11 to 16, and teaches an occasional art class at Wallace State’s Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning programs.
Walker said it’s great to have her work on exhibit at Wallace State and in her home county. “I just love our community, and I’m grateful as an artist to make a living doing what I love.”
Walker’s paintings will be on exhibit through Dec. 16 in the exhibit hall of the Burrow Center for the Fine and Performing Arts. Call The Evelyn Burrow Museum at 256-352-8457 for more information.
