A Museum of One’s Own: John Isiah Walton

John Isiah Walton (photos by: Kelley Crawford)

Sarah Holtz and I met up on bike with John Isiah Walton‘s studio address on a piece of paper. We rode through the neighborhood as the early summer, late day New Orleans sun made as squint and sweat. When we got to the address on the paper, we sat on the stoop.

Conversations about the confederate monuments coming down, the protests, and the protests against protests allowed us to lose time and simply sit. It wasn’t until John came around the corner and said, “Hey, I’m actually around here,” that we realized we were on the wrong stoop.

Walton had just moved into his studio a couple of weeks before so as we walked up his stairs he assured us, “It’s going to be messy.” The door creaked open, we ungracefully carried our bikes into the space, and we saw nothing but paintings everywhere–stacked against each other and leaning against two walls with only a chair, a small table, and a giant easel competing for space. Walton’s approximately 9X9 studio houses an innumerable number of thoughts, strokes of different brushes, and paintings hidden below other paintings. Their stories are all in the memory of John Isiah Walton, and with this museum he calls his own, here are the stories he shared with us:

Painting by John Isiah Walton (Photos by: Kelley Crawford)