Working the 500-pound press inside her Newburgh studio overlooking the Hudson River, Allison Walker grunts while turning what she calls “the captain’s wheel,” as if piloting a boat.
At 34, the printmaker has sold more than 350 works. She left the marketing world to focus on creativity. “Sometimes you have to swing for the fences,” she says.
Raised Mormon in the San Francisco Bay area, she zigged and zagged her way to Beacon a few years ago, including a stint as a lighthouse keeper on Martha’s Vineyard.
“It sounds romantic, but it was seasonal, and we operated it as a museum,” she says. “Winters can be rough, although the year-rounders have such a strong community.”
The press does the heavy lifting, but using too little paint or pressure creates a weak image. Too much and it squirts all over. Paying attention to details, such as dialing in the right space between the rollers, is key.
After completing a print, Walker dabs paint and oil plaster on the paper, creating a bumpy, raised texture. On her website at allisonwalkerart.com, she advises people to frame her work using spacers or a mat to keep from pressing the glass against the paper, which could mar the image and crack the pigment.
Inspired by the ceiling at Grand Central Station, Walker is branching into gold leaf. But her focus remains on programmatic works that tell a story. Sometimes the action is interpreted with a few sentences of explanation.
She earned a master’s degree in theology, imagination and the arts at the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland, a Hogwarts-worthy course of study reflected in pieces like “Shroud of Turin” and “Jacob Wrestles the Messenger.” Ancient texts and religious allegories thread through her eye-catching arrays of deep color.
“Aeineid,” one of three pieces on exhibit at Bank Art Gallery in Newburgh, includes rings of blue and gold that “represent tradition and creation swirling over a red flame,” she writes. Creating an illusion, the fiery center looks bent or folded. In “Prophecy,” she notes that, in addition to the primary color palette, “ ‘waves of time’ undulate through and a neon spring green shoots forward off the page.”
Her bread and butter are narrative works like “The Story of Michael and Carmen,” who lived in Beacon when they commissioned the piece. Carmen is from Colorado, represented by red rocks on the top left. Michael is from Boca Raton (palm trees and pink buildings).
“They worked in the city, so there’s the tall buildings and the top right is the waterfall by the Roundhouse and the suggestion of a mountain,” Walker says. “It swirls into a whirlpool and that’s the story of their lives — so far.”
Most clients find Walker on social media, but she participates in the gallery scene. Beyond the works in Newburgh, she showed at both recent Beacon Open Studios exhibits and is in a juried show at Millbrook Vineyards and Winery through November. After applying three times, she was selected for the New Britain Museum of American Art in Connecticut, which opens Saturday (Aug. 9).
Now that Walker is out hustling for her art, her marketing background comes in handy. One project is lobbying Mirbeau Inn and Spa, which is constructing a hotel and spa complex on Route 9D, to institute a locally focused art program. “Artists built this place, and it would be great if they acknowledge that,” she says.
