The Tale of a Caroline Walker Painting

I love cows. If you knew me in sixth form you might be smiling about this. I had a cow print hat Jamiroquai style. Shh don’t judge it was the 90s and I thought I was cool. In fact I had lots and lots of cow print things in my late teens. My love of all things bovine is much more moderated now, although I do have a cow print fridge – got to love decorative stickers.

I also love Cornwall. I remember my very first trip there, I was 22 and I flew down to Newquay to stay with my then fiance’s family. As my family mostly holidayed abroad – other than the Isle of Wight, Cornwall as a new experience for me and although the weather isn’t always kind, and the roads often make me car sick, it’s always beautiful.

During my stays in Cornwall, than have spanned over the last *ahem* 14 years I came across two artists who did beautiful cow paintings and I fell in love. The first Nicola Jane Rowles and the second, my favourite Caroline Walker.  Each year I would go and look at their paintings in featured galleries, looking them over and never being able at the time being able to justify the price tag. We were either saving for a house, a wedding or had a baby. Or in the early days I just did not have a house big enough to pull off such a statement piece.

This year, we arrived in Padstow for our holiday and had time to kill before we were allowed to check in to our holiday home. As we were walking around I stopped and said to my husband ‘oh look the cow paintings I love’ and he replied ‘go in and find out the price’. So I did. I was a little taken aback, but terribly excited when he said to me – ‘why don’t you buy one’. After 14 years I was finally able to purchase a much coveted piece of art.

My day got even better, however, as the artist herself – Caroline Walker – was there. When I was looking at the painting she didn’t have one in quite the colour that I wanted. So she said ‘no problem – I’ll change one for you if you can give me a few days’. How amazing is that?

It was a delight to meet and chat with Caroline Walker, but also for her then to amend one of her painting to my colour scheme was really fantastic. Caroline and I had a few things in common, like we both used to work in retail and she kindly let me take some pictures of her and her paintings for the blog too. We have recently had our front room redecorated and my new painting is now a fabulous statement piece on our focal wall and I couldn’t be happier.