Sedona artist Curt Walters came back from a trip to the Booth Western Art Museum in Georgia with a small glass obelisk engraved with his name and the words “Artist of Excellence Award.”

While there, he was attending an event for artists and art enthusiasts, who applauded Walters’ life work.

“There were like 600, 700 people there, so it was a big deal,” he said. “It was a black tie affair, and it was a sit down banquet dinner. And so they gave them one of my paintings, 24 by 24 Grand Canyon,” — titled “Pythia and The Guardian” — “which they auctioned off, and made quite a bit of money for the museum.

“All those funds go towards children’s education.”

This isn’t the first time his work’s been given to the museum. Two of his pieces have landed in the permanent collection there, “Antelope Ruins Overlook” and “A Diviner Air.”

“One of them [Antelope Ruins Overlook] actually is from 1983,” Walters said. “When I painted it, I was still really young, and it never occurred to me that it would ever hang in a museum. So, it’s got this great prominent wall, and it shows really well in the museum. It’s kind of crazy to see it.”

The other painting he finished in 2006.

While there, he said the museum had ordered 40 of his books for Walters to sign and sell.

Walters released his biography, “Resilience: The Life History and Grand Canyon Art of Curt Walters,” earlier this year and held a book signing event at Western Spirit: Scottsdale’s Museum of Western Art on Jan. 17.

“I signed every one of them, and they sold out that night,” he said. “So it was pretty cool, and so I’m ordering more.”

The gala was on March13 and 14 and included sales of miniatures, a brunch and two dinners.

“They’ve been doing this event … for about 10 years,” he said. “And so the whole thing is geared towards the fundraiser, towards education for the museum.”

During the brunch, he said, one of the curators for the museum sat down with him for an interview, with almost a hundred people in the audience.

“I’ve never been grilled quite like that before,” Walters said.

He said the conversation was for people to learn more about him, his life and how his book came to be. The moderator went deep into the part of the book where Walters was divorced and how it affected his art.

“Which is not something that I would have talked about in a public kind of setting,” Walters said. “I would let them read it in the book, but she was interested. … The end result was that nobody, I mean nobody, moved during the interview.
They didn’t move. No one got up, no one left, they didn’t shuffle.”

Fine Art Museum of Sedona

The Fine Art Museum of Sedona will host a public exhibit for Curt Walters’ lifetime of work.

Harley Todd, the museum’s chairman, said the three month exhibit will begin in September. The public showing will take place from Thursday, Sept. 3, to Thursday, Nov. 26, according to the FAMoS spring newsletter.

On Friday, Sept. 4, Walters will be holding a book signing event for FAMoS’ First Friday fundraising event, Todd said.