Feature

Nature Boy

Falling Bough (2002), a passenger-pigeon-filled watercolor, will be part of Ford's upcoming gallery show.

(Photo: Courtesy of Paul Kasmin Gallery and the artist.)

With this, Walton reads aloud from the section in Audubon's diary dealing with the golden eagle. First, Audubon describes the attempt to snare the bird with a fox trap, but the eagle managed to get away, flying more than a mile with the trap on its leg. When the naturalist got hold of the bird, the problem of how to kill it remained. He thought of " 'suffocating him by means of burning charcoal, of killing him by electricity,' " Walton reads from Audubon's book. Asphyxiation by burning charcoal was the choice, but after two days of ingesting the acrid smoke, the eagle refused to die. Losing patience, Audubon says, "At last I was compelled to resort to a method always used as the last expedient, and a most effectual one. I thrust a long pointed piece of steel through his heart, when my proud prisoner instantly fell dead." Painting the eagle was difficult for Audubon. Felled by what he referred to as "a spasmodic affection," the conservationist icon was force to take to his bed for weeks.

Pointing at the canvas, Walton says: "My picture will have the eagle trying to escape, the fox trap on its leg, this horrible burning smoke coming out of its mouth. It'll be thinking, Like, what the fuck do I have to do to get away from this asshole? . . . I'll probably call it Spasmodic Affection." When Walton first came up to Great Barrington, he wondered if being away from New York would keep him from becoming a famous artist. But it has worked out. Paul Kasmin is selling his canvases for more money than he ever dreamed possible. Now he's the resident art star of the town. He painted a few "porno" pictures based on Lewis and Clark's journey through the Louisiana Territory for the chef of the best restaurant in town, so he gets free food, which is a nice perk. Reflexively friendly, Walton's got a comment for everyone, a slap on the back.

"Can't help it, it's the way my dad was," Walton says of his father, now battling cancer. "Flicky Ford, they called him. He had that thing, that southern thing. He was a great storyteller, a great drinker. It's funny: He started as a cartoonist, at which he was only okay, but when he was at Time-Life, he used to hang out with Walt Kelly, who drew Pogo. Kelly used a lot of my father's dialogue for the strip because he was from Chicago, so how was he supposed to know how the animals in the Okefenokee Swamp talked? My dad and mom broke up when I was 10. There was a lot of darkness, but he just sailed on top of it," Walton says, as if this is a bullet he has to dodge.

"One lucky dude, I am," Walton says, driving home through the mountains to his home in Southfield. He says he married his wife, Julie Jones, whom he met at RISD, because "I saw these paintings, these images of restraint, and I really liked them. Then I met the artist, and she was, like, the most beautiful girl in the whole school, so that was pretty much it. . . . You know, I figured I'd have this great horn-dog career, and then I saw her and there was no choice." Married to Walton now for seventeen years, Julie Jones is still beautiful, and their two young daughters, Lillian and Camellia, ages 9 and 5, are also beautiful.

It being a beautiful early-fall day, Walton and his girls are going for a walk down the road from their lovely house to the pond. The pond is behind the old buggy-whip factory, which used to support the town and has been turned into an antiques shop. "From buggy whips to antiques," Walton says, as if it is the way of the world. The pond, which used to contain the sludge from the whip tannery but now contains a thriving little ecosystem, is full of frogs.

"Look," Walton yells to his daughters. "This frog caught a dragonfly. He's gonna eat it. Let's watch."