BRAWLEY — In honor of Black History Month, Brawley native and artist Donald O. Walker showed his collection, “Masterpieces: Mosaic Art Exhibition,” an exposition of more than 20 pieces utilizing everything from screws and small pebbles to Christmas lights.
Portraits of historically significant figures (also the title of his pieces) such as MLK, James Brown, Pancho Villa, Luciano Pavarotti, Jennifer Lopez and Clint Eastwood, among others, were rendered from glass, yarn, pebbles, nails, cans and more.
“Nobody teached him, he taught himself,” said Donald Walker’s wife, Marva. Due to his health conditions, Donald Walker did not speak much.

About 30 family members, friends and admirers of art attended the exhibit at Twisted Frenzy Smash Room in Brawley, a business owned by Donald’s daughter, Marva Walker II. There, mosaics of celebrities and historical figures could be seen.
Marva Walker explained the process of her husband’s art, from getting a piece of wood to use as a base for the art piece, to finding a picture that he liked, drawing the picture on the board, gathering material from junkyards or using Christmas lights or beer bottles to get different colors of glass, baking the glass (a process which crystallizes the glass, giving it a softer texture) and finally putting everything together and finish it up with resin.
An example of the way Donald Walker uses raw materials can be found in the piece, “MLK.” In “MLK,” during the “I Have a Dream” speech, the mosaic shows the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King talking. Donald Walker chose to put MLK’s words as screws filling the space around him; and what are screws usually used for? They’re used for putting things together, to join pieces together, just as MLK’s political activism was trying to do back in the ’50s and ’60s.

The 85-year-old artist is also well known for his contributions to the Imperial Valley throughout his 30-year career as an educator, from teacher to football coach, to counselor, to mentor. Former students of his were present at the exhibition for a chance to talk to him and appreciate his art.
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“I had never seen a Black teacher prior to him working there, so it was kind of inspirational,” recalled Donna Sellers, former student of Walker’s at Westmorland Grammar School in 1966.
Besides just teaching, he also took his time to teach his students how to sing, and even to speak in Spanish. “I don’t even know I liked music until we had him as our teacher … He’s like a legend,” Sellers said.
Stella Mata, another former student of his, remembers him fondly: “He would encourage us, he would tell us not to give up … He always had time for us, always.”