BEHIND THE LENS

E. E. Walker is a self-taught, multi-disciplinary artist born and raised in Eastern Iowa. Since 2012, she has owned and operated a freelance photography and graphic design business known as Emma’s Cellar Door. Her range of mediums include outdoor/natural light photography, graphic design, web UI/UX design, and mixed media illustration servicing Cedar Rapids and surrounding areas. With a passion for entrepreneurship, Walker has begun offering brand and digital marketing packages to local businesses and nonprofits. These packages include a new website build or remodel, logo design, product/team/location photography, social media setup or expansion, and strategic consultation. 

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In 2013, Walker was one of two artists chosen to paint a historical mural commissioned by the USAF located on Laughlin AFB in Del Rio, TX. In 2016, Walker began taking family portraits and fell in love with the connection she found with her clients. Through those connections, she also found a love for product and event photography. Why only pick one thing that makes you happy? Since 2018, Walker has been CR Pride’s exclusive photographer of events including their annual pride festival in celebration of the LGBTQ+ community. As a volunteer, Walker has worked alongside several animal shelters including Last Hope Animal Rescue of Cedar Rapids, IA to photograph fundraising events and animals up for adoption (Shelter Stories) in an effort to find them permanent homes. In May of 2021, Walker presented her work in the Iowa Pop Art Market at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library of Cedar Rapids, IA. Soon after attending her first art show, she decided to accept an invitation to curate her own. Thus Colony Arts was born, a new kind of art experience bringing diversity to Amana, IA. In addition to her freelance work, Walker chairs the board of Lavender Legal Center as a founding member of the LGBTQ+ focused nonprofit. Walker is also an enthusiast of local music, arts, and theatre; she enjoys any opportunity to pick up an instrument or act in short films.

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Throughout her life, Walker has experienced a multitude of great adventures and losses. She uses art as a way to connect with and free herself from her corporeal form; while capturing and interpreting life's raw moments including firsthand experience with endometriosis, PTSD, and sexual violence. She believes the artistry of self expression is directly linked to one’s sexuality, sensuality, trauma and pain. Each of these things are uniquely personal as well as uniquely beautiful which allows great depth for empathy and inspiration. But above all, she believes that art is a place where the soul goes to rejuvenate itself, and hopes to give others even just a taste of that to take back out into the world with them.