HOME IS WHERE THE ART IS: MADELINE WALKER

Madeline Walker is a Visual Artist from Cincinnati, Ohio. She recently settled in Bellevue, Kentucky after living and working in Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and New York. She creates sculptural paintings and installations, often pairing digital fabrication processes with traditional mold-making techniques throughout the process. She is currently represented by Dab Art Gallery in Los Angeles, California, and has been featured on platforms such as Projects We Love (Kickstarter), Articulate by PBS, Medium, and La Femme Collective.

Kentucky- Madeline had just returned home from a visit to New York City when the reach and implications of the Coronavirus were starting to become more apparent. 

“As it was starting to become more prominent in the news, It was a no brainer to self quarantine as soon as I got home, knowing I could have potentially been exposed to it while traveling in NYC, even if I wasn’t showing any symptoms.”

Fortunately, remaining indoors hasn’t hindered her ability to create new work: she recently converted her nearly 600 square foot detached garage into a studio. Madeline shares the workspace with her partner, Jonathan Stein, who is also an artist (the two purchased their Bellevue, Kentucky, home together this past Fall).

“Social distancing sped up my need for this renovation to take place… I put up plywood walls and painted in a bit of a hurry when I was self quarantining, and thought shelter in place orders were coming soon.

Normally I work in a studio which is affiliated with & across the street from Wave Pool Gallery in Camp Washington, Cincinnati, which I really love…I was very sad to [temporarily] move out… but also excited to make some major progress on my home studio space.

[The renovation] has allowed me to continue working, because I can’t commute to my Cincinnati studio right now, even though it’s only about ten minutes away!”

Although she misses her creative community at Wave Pool, Madeline is making the most of working from home. She’s taken the opportunity “to change things up a bit and work on a larger scale,” and shared some of the essentials of her new workspace:

I am pretty obsessed with Pantone, Golden Acrylics, and all things color related. I just can’t imagine living without them at this point.

I also need my plants. I am particularly fond of my jade plant.

In the morning, she enjoys tuning into the “I Like Your Work” and “Art & Cocktails” podcasts while she works.

I also love listening to audiobooks and Spotify… [the] Discover Weekly playlist helps me when I am not hip on what’s new. It’s nice that it picks for me, and I almost always find something I definitely would not otherwise.

Outside of the studio, Madeline’s daily rituals include yoga, meditation and taking walks with her Chocolate Lab German Shepherd, Bear:

Yoga and meditation always help keep me grounded. Lately I have been doing a lot more walking than yoga, but plan to get back into that routine here at home soon.  

Usually my dog Bear and I walk a couple miles together throughout the day too. She either comes with me to the studio, or to work with my partner. 

She finds herself turning to books in the absence of being able to see her friends, family and creative peers:

I recently read How to Be an Artist by Jerry Saltz and it was fantastic as I expected it to be. Great juice and inspiration for creatives types to push through uncertainty and keep making during this time.

I am usually reading a couple of books at a time at night on my Kindle and think it’s even more helpful now when we don’t have the regular voices of studio visits, friends, family, etc., in our daily routines as much.

Madeline is currently working on a series of sculptural paintings called “Mind Maps,” which she plans to exhibit at The Other Art Fair in Brooklyn next Fall. The fair, originally scheduled to begin later this month, was postponed until November as a result of Covid-19.

To learn more about Madeline’s work, visit her website https://www.madelinewalkerart.com