Mack Walton

Artist Bio
Mack Walton

Mack Walton’s Passion: Art as a Life’s Work
For so many artists, their work is simply what they feel compelled to do. For such artists, releasing their creative juices is as much a part of life as breathing.

“It’s my life’s work,” says local artist Mack Walton. “I love this.”

It’s Walton’s life, it’s his passion. And it has been so for over 40 years.

Walton, a Toledo native who attended Scott High School, started painting in 1966 when he won a contest and took a correspondence course. After that he was hooked, says the Vietnam veteran who joined Jeep in the late 1970’s and remained in factory work there until his retirement in 2001.

Walton developed a procedure, and a following amongst his fellow employees at Jeep, by transferring photographs to oil canvases. He estimates that he painted over 100 portraits during his 25-year Jeep career. He would simply take home the photographs that he was presented by his colleagues and acquaintances and start to paint.

This kept him fairly busy, he recalls, but it also limited his ability to reach for a broader audience. “I didn’t have time to sell myself,” says Walton. And as any successful artist will freely admit, an artist must have the ability to pay attention to the business side of the art business.

“Most of the time when an art exhibit was going on, it was over before I knew about it,” he says. That was then.

Times have changed over the last year for Walton. He has been featured in a number of shows and galleries – such as The Truth Gallery. And his range has expanded as he has devoted even more time to his art.

Walton painted a portrait of a young Mike Tyson, for example. The Tyson portrait, a large 30” by 40” canvass, was inspired by Walton’s love of boxing (“one of my favorite sports”) and his admiration for the Tyson of an earlier day – the Tyson of pre-caricature days.

Walton also ventured into street scenes and still life to satisfy his own artistic curiosities. Now, there are few subjects that he does not undertake. From portraits, to landscapes, to animal scenes, Walton has his hand, and his oils, in a wide range of subject matter.