Steve's Writings
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I came very close this year to making this calendar a “Greatest Hits” compilation. For several reasons; Firstly, I tend to think of my paintings as songs, with the visual impact being the music, and the inherent ideas and content being the words. Secondly, I am aware because of verbal comments, written comments to my website, and the number of sales of reproductions of particular images, that certain paintings are more popular than others, thus “greatest hits”. Thirdly, I have been painting fulltime now for ten years and thought that a “Greatest Hits Collection” might be a sensible and timely idea. Ten years ago today, I was (obviously), ten years younger. I was painting madly yet with great sanity in Toronto, Canada (my home since 1980),in preparation for my first solo gallery |
 exhibition, which was part of the Cultural Festival for the 1994 Gay Games being held in New York City. At that time I was still (sporadically) employed as an actor, (the discipline I majored in at University), and as a waiter, (the discipline I majored in between acting jobs). In the previous few years I had begun to paint a few paintings a year, showing them in group exhibitions throughout Toronto.
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 My first paintings were born, in some way, from a sense of boredom and lack of employment. The economic recession greatly affected the amount of work available for both catering waiters and actors (along with many other people). The genesis of my career was also greatly impacted by the burgeoning AIDS crisis that marked that period of history and those years of my life. My secret life as a painter was slowly, yet quickly, becoming public knowledge.
As a child growing up in a very rural environment south of Ottawa (the capital city of Canada) I was always aware that I possessed artistic talent. To me it was just a fact of life, as was my homosexuality, which I was aware of as far back as I can remember. Both things seemed to separate me from other people. On thing seemed to make some people like me, while the other thing made some people hate me. It all seemed as ridiculous to me then as it does now. Despite my artistic talent, I desired to be an actor and moved to “the big city” of Toronto, when I was 18, to study theatre at University. I had anticipated that the theatre program would attract many gay guys, and I was correct. I did not know however that each year a reduction of the amount of students invited back would see a program of 240 students reduced finally to 16, of which I was the only gay person. Alone again, naturally. |
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 As an actor, I preferred theater to film or television work. Being part of a good production, of a good play, is an exciting and gratifying venture. Yet in my opinion, an actor is an actor, not an artist. The artist is the playwright and the director. The actor is used in the realization of their artistic vision. For this reason, the acting profession was seldom a gratifying artistic experience for me. I remember very clearly a turning point. One afternoon, as I sat in a small room at a Double Mint chewing gum commercial audition with 6 other actors, watching an instructional video demonstrating the proper technique for “loading” a piece of gum into one’s mouth, I decided it was time to concentrate more intensely on painting.
I began teaching myself how to paint several years earlier. Since childhood, I had essentially drawn and illustrated, yet never really painted. My exposure to a vast amount of European painting while backpacking through Europe in 1987 was a great inspiration to me. Producing only a few paintings a year with no intention of showing or selling them, I taught myself the realistic style of painting that I use to this day. The themes and ideas came from my own life, my own experiences, and that which I observed around me. I never considered disguising the truths of my life as a gay man in my paintings, in order to gain wider acceptance in the art world. I have long believed that opening a person’s mind to one idea allows many more to ideas to flow in. I thought that it was a valid artistic venture to portray gay people as people and not the “things” that society has always tried to see us as. The style of my painting comes from a general distaste for the abstraction so prevalent in art of the last century. I would not find painting in such a style challenging or gratifying. Friends eventually discovered my paintings and convinced me to
start showing them.
From the very start, I had no problem selling my work. There was a chain reaction of galleries “discovering” my work in other galleries and wanting to represent me. I have had many solo exhibitions in cities such as New York, Montreal, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Key West, Florida.
I travel often to many different cities to sign reproductions and meet the people who collect my work. I have sold over 98% of the paintings I have created. Since beginning to paint full-time, I went from producing a few paintings a year to producing approximately 40 per year.
In 1996 the company Quest Art was created to publish my work exclusively (in calendars, greeting cards, and prints). These reproductions are carried in stores throughout Canada, the United States, Europe, and beyond. At the same time, Quest Art began to develop my internet website www.stevewalker.com At that time, I knew nothing about the internet, websites, or computers. I soon realized the vast potential for a worldwide audience that my website afforded me. I could never satisfied having the only people able to experience my work be those who saw if on the walls of a gallery or owned an original piece in their home. Considering the relatively small number of paintings that an artist can actually produce in his/her career and the prohibitive cost of that work, for me, it was very important to make my work available to a larger audience at much less expense. The website allows anyone in the world with a computer and an internet connection to experience my work with no expenditure. I receive beautiful letters from people across the world who have been touched by my work and in turn, touch me with their words.
As I sit here writing this letter on a restaurant patio beneath the beautiful mounts of San Jose, Cost Rica (I have been living and painting here for the last three months), it all seems somewhat overwhelming and surrealistic. The “it” being my life and career. Immeasurable hours spent in solitude with brushes and paint, countless decisions made listening to only one voice (my own), the faces and thoughts of thousands of people I have met in distant cities, the myriad of paintings I will never paint, the models I want to forget and the others I will never forget, and the knowledge that the life of my paintings might escape the mortality of our own lives.
I guess that you can see that I decided against making this calendar a “Greatest Hits” compilation. Perhaps, in the future. Most of the paintings included here are very recent. Some of the paintings that I’ve created here in Cost Rica will be included in next year’s calendar. I hope that 2005 brings with it happiness, peace, and love for all of you, and that we all try to bring the same to each other.
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Steve Walker Toronto, Canada |
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