We recently connected with Laura Walker and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Laura thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
I do art with emotion and meaning. I have always been pulled to art that has a story or provokes an emotional response in me. That connection to my viewer is my inspiration in making art. As I made my art that expressed my soul, other people appreciated it and started buying it. This is while I was teaching art classes as my regular job. I started doing art festivals along with teaching. It was so thrilling to connect with people through my art that I leaned into doing the festivals. Eventually the art festivals replaced my teaching income and I was able to let the art classes go. Now I travel the country doing the best art festivals and selling my art online. I still focus on connecting emotionally with my viewers and telling stories with my art.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I do art with emotion, art with meaning, art with a soul. Whether I’m painting a custom portrait of someone’s home, one of my symbolic watercolors for a gallery show, or my textured whimsical acrylic animals for art festivals, I’m always expressing what is inside me through my art. I believe art can connect the artist and the viewer. I am Laura Walker: Art With a Soul.
How did you build your audience on social media?
I am an extrovert so building my social media presence has come organically for me. I like posting about my thoughts, my art process, and new art. I love to hear feedback from true humans on the other side of the computer screens. Many of my collectors and online supporters have become real life friends. They give me painting ideas, funny titles, and cheer me on. I post on social media daily and find the online interaction to be pleasant. I also send out a monthly newsletter to make sure my audience doesn’t miss important updates due to the ever changing online algorithm.
We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.
I am a self taught artist. I did my first large palette knife painting in 2012, a colorful cat face. I wanted to do something large, expressive, to please myself. People loved it so I explored that direction more. Since I never went to art college, I taught myself how to use the palette knife from watching other artists paint in person and online. I craved texture so I researched the best thickest acrylic paints. Now I’ve spent several years developing my own techniques to push the texture farther. Since no one has taught me, I just make up my own ways of painting.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.laurawalkerart.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurawalkerartwithasoul
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laurawalkerartwithasoul
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@laurawalkerartwithasoul
