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| Rodney Walker on porch of T.C.Steele home, Nashville, Indiana 1999 photo by the author |
Rodney Walker, Artist
I met the artist Rodney Walker about twenty-five years ago when we both rented space in the Faris Building, the hulking box of cheap rent and plentiful studio space on the near south side of downtown Indianapolis. The inaugural exhibit and opening in my art gallery on the fifth floor had occurred on May 2, 1997 and Walker was showing work in Lois Main Templeton’s seventh floor studio the same day. By June, Walker had rented studio space on the east side of the fourth floor and joined the Faris Building artist community. Walker’s studio, like all spaces in the building, had huge banks of windows on the outside wall, with his looking out onto Old Meridian Street directly across to the former original Manual High School.
I’m not certain when our paths first crossed, but certainly by the late summer we met, as my visitor book indicates he attended both the opening and closing receptions for Paul Neufelder’s paintings on glass which ran from August 22 through October 25. He signed the book R Walker, with his West 10th Street address, at the exhibition’s opening, but by the show’s closing, he signed in with a new declaration; Rodney Walker Artist, 400 Suite Faris Building.
In a conversation I had with Walker, in early 2001, he recalled the year and a half he spent in the Faris Building with great fondness. “The saddest day I had was knowing that I had to leave. I left my home, Christmas Eve (1997), and never went back to it. I lived and slept in the Faris Building, and lived and breathed my art.” Walker left a personal note under my gallery doors in November 1998 before he left. ‘No words can describe the way I feel. The many cold and hot nights and days we’ve talked about life and art. I thank you.’ The Faris Building was notoriously hot in the summer and cold in the winter, with its glass exterior, rickety steam radiators and no AC. His note ended with his best wishes and advised me he was setting up a new studio on N. Belmont Ave.
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| Rodney Walker observing the renovations to the former Faris Building, August 1999 photo by the author |
Walker was mainly self-taught as a painter, sculptor and comic strip artist. Born in Detroit, Michigan in 1946, his early education includes graduation from Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis in 1965 and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Social Work from Indiana State University in 1970.Walker’s formal art training was the completion of a two-year correspondence art course in 1991 and some drawing classes at the Indianapolis Art Center in 1996. Noteworthy work produced during this period included his comic strip Sef Chaney, U.S. Marshal which ran in the Indianapolis Recorder from 1993-1997, and a portrait series of drawings Tuskegee Airmen – Indianapolis Chapter which was created for the 1997 National Convention held in Indianapolis.
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| The Black Angels of Pelelliu, Rodney Walker, photocopy of a charcoal drawing, dated 8-99 |
Informally, Walker studied art and artists relentlessly, viewing VHS tapes and pouring over books from his local libraries, attending galleries and museums and perhaps most importantly, visiting artists’ studios. Once, after his Faris Building times, his Haughville apartment suffered a break-in and his VHS player was stolen. He was upset his art studies were interrupted so callously and looked forward to replacing the VCR as soon as he received his next paycheck. His employer at that time, in the early 2000s was Indianapolis Public Schools where he worked periodically as a substitute teacher.
Walker was friendly and sociable and moved through various art circles in Indianapolis. In the wake of the closing of the Faris Building in the Spring of 1999, new scenes were forming at the newly christened Murphy Art Center in Fountain Square, the Harrison Center in the vicinity of Herron School of Art and the Bodner Building on Madison Avenue. He had friends and acquaintances in all those places.
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| Walker works on his Horse sculpture, his painting They Worked Hard and Paid the Price on the wall behind, 2000, photo by author |
Walker visited my Irvington home often, sometimes on the hottest days of summer, to beat the heat of his apartment which lacked AC. I had a window air conditioner in my home and the cool air blew directly onto the area where Walker worked on various things including clay figure soldiers for a diorama project he was creating for display at the Indiana War Memorial Museum downtown.
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| Rodney Walker Drawing in His Sketchbook, graphite on cardstock, 2000, drawing by the author |
Walker loved catfish dinners and we went to Old Country Buffet many times, at Southern Plaza in those days, where he would run into young restaurant workers that knew him from his substitute teaching at nearby Manual High School. We discussed art scene goings on and events of the day, but also his favorite artists. He took pride in the accomplishments and was inspired by the painters of the famed Harlem Renaissance, mainly Horace Pippin and Jacob Lawrence. Another favorite was Robert H. Colescott, who was a mentor, and provided advice and encouragement via the telephone conversations instigated by Walker over the course of a period of time.
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| (Title Unknown), Rodney Walker, mixed media drawing, 1998 |
I accompanied Walker on pilgrimages to the T.C Steele Studio and Museum property near Nashville, Indiana, and to view the Thomas Hart Benton murals around the campus at Indiana University in Bloomington.
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| They Worked Hard and Paid the Price, Rodney Walker, oil on canvas board, 1999 |
The subject matter of Walker’s paintings was drawn from his African American experience, both good and bad. As a baby boomer, the popular culture of his times also influenced his work. The era of slavery is depicted in Going North, oil on un-stretched canvas, which shows the nighttime exodus of a family on the run. He described this work in early 2001 as one of his most ambitious and important. “The month before I left (the Faris Building), October ’98, I was happy with painting Going North. One of the artists gave me a piece of canvas in ’97. I didn’t know what to do with it. I feel to this day it is my best work. My pastor Kenneth Christmon has the painting in Richmond, Indiana.”
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| Going North, Rodney Walker, oil on canvas, 1998 |
Walker also recalled in 2000, “I have to think about the Marvin Gaye painting because that was a very intense project. I went down to the studio one Friday night from work. My friend Ralph (painter Ralph Domanico) was playing some Marvin Gaye tapes in his studio, I had a couple beers and remembered how I met Marvin Gaye in the summer of ’75.” The shared beers and music with an artist friend inspired the project that resulted Walker’s large format portrait of the singer, A Tribute to the Late Mr. Marvin Gaye.
In February 2000, additional works by Walker, in his solo show Planted Seeds from Early Black America, were shown in the storefront gallery I had on Meridian Street just south of the Faris Building. Walker had great attendance and support for the opening reception of his Planted Seeds show. A boyhood friend and an ex girlfriend from his personal life as well as numerous others from his teaching life, his church worship community and his friends and fellow artists George Murff and Anthony Radford from his then current New Jersey St. studio scene. Lois Main Templeton was in attendance, and artist Christos Koutsouras who purchased Walker's Only a Few Will Stand Together from the show.
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| Rodney Walker in 2000 photo by the author |
Walker participated in the annual Meet the Artists group show held at the Marion County Central Library location in Indianapolis in 1997, 1998, and beyond. Per Scott Miley’s Indianapolis Star article, Walker contributed three artworks self-described as ‘propaganda posters’ for display at the Somber Tribute, Serene Celebration on September 11, 2002 held at Ivy Tech State College in Indianapolis. In February 2013, Rodney Walker collaborated with Bruce Armstrong and Harrison Center for the Arts in the group show Black Light. In March of 2016, Walker was a participant in The Forgiving Sea, an interactive painting by Carolyn Springer, displayed at the Harrison Center for the Arts.
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| Rodney Walker (right) with the author on Talk Show in Project Space, Murphy Art Center, 2001 screenshot video by the author |
Rodney Walker viewed the movie Basquiat every day for a month during the summer of 1998. At the end of that strange self-imposed trial, he produced an unusual and interesting painting of the same name, Basquiat. It shows two figures. A large imposing profile in the foreground dominates the canvas and depicts a man with huge hair looking toward a graffiti artist at work along a row of homes, tiny in the distance. There is just a speck of sunset sky. The viewer must decide which figure is which. Who is watching who? One generation observing the next? One part of the psych wary of another? The spraypaint can some kind of magic weapon, but against a king so massive and strong? Some elemental Basquiat-part of Walker, or of us?
-Mark Diekhoff orig. published 4/24/23 4:42 PM
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| Basquiat, Rodney Walker, oil on board |
Rodney Walker, 70, passed away September 19, 2016.
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| Above four paintings were included in Walker's exhibition Planted Seeds from Early Black America, February 2000 |
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