About

 

 I am a visual artist, writer, and self-taught historian of Southern California. My decades-long immersion in the rural cultures of Mexico’s Copper Canyon (the transformative experience of my life) formed the foundation for my fascination with Southern California history and the legends of the saints. Both these threads combined in the organic unfolding of what has become an eight-year exploration of LA’s multicultural heritage and richly complex history, called All the Saints of the City of the Angels.

This exploration unwittingly led to the creation and, amazingly, the publication of my first book, All the Saints of the City of the Angels: Seeking the Soul of L.A. on Its Streets, published in March of this year by Heyday Books – which is complemented by a solo exhibition of many of the original paintings that form this series – with the similar title “All the Saints of the City of the Angels: Paintings and Stories by J Michael Walker“, which ran first at the Autry National Center’s Museum of the American West, in Los Angeles, CA (Feb 29 – Oct 5 ’08); and then, presently, at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, in Los Angeles (1 No 08 – 12 April 09).