Artist installed 70 hand-built ceramic birds in a Greenwood Village tree

Joan Walker stands all of 4 feet 11 inches tall yet has an enormous spirit, perhaps best represented by her towering bird tree — a cottonwood not far from her home in Greenwood Village. To celebrate her 70^th birthday a few years ago, Walker installed more than 70 of her hand-built, glaze-fired ceramic birds in the tree between mile markers 29 and 30 on the Highline Canal Trail.

And not just 70-plus ceramic birds, but 70 different birds — each an individual sculpture and cumulatively a flock of whimsical creativity. This one has a gilded crest and beak. That one has a floral decal. One has a feathery texture carved into the clay. Another Walker stamped with star shapes. This bird has a multicolored body and that one calligraphic lyrics from a Beatles song. This one is shaped like a woodpecker, that one like a mourning dove or a wren. Walker’s bird tree is a wonder for wanderers to behold and now a landmark near Highline Canal and South Franklin Street.

“I have always been drawn to birds. I probably put up 80 initially because I knew some birds would fall. There’s been some bird attrition. This is stoneware. I tell people these birds are fine outside,” said Walker, looking up at her colorful ceramic birds, her bright smile a testimony to her merry intention.

Walker’s bird tree is familiar to and a fond highlight for many who frequent the Highline Canal trail. While the artist and I stood discussing the logistics of her installation, two women and an Australian shepherd strolled past.

“Are you enjoying the birds?” one woman asked, and Walker grinned.

“I counted one day, and there are more than 70,” the woman informed us.

Walker couldn’t help but giggle, and in doing so outed herself as the artist — an admission she hasn’t readily made publicly until recently. In the surreptitious manner of Banksy (England-based street artist), Walker — with help from her family under the cover of night — began installing the birds without fanfare.

Birds of a feather create ceramics together

“Joan’s very modest, but also fearless. She didn’t want people to know it was her birds,” said Julia Mulligan, a multidisciplinary artist based in Golden. “Little by little, she’s been able to share, ‘I’m the one who did the bird tree.’ Now she’s proud of it, and she should be. It’s so Joan. When she said she was doing it, I thought it was a very brave project to undertake. I don’t know that I’d have the wherewithal to sneak out at night with a ladder and my family and fill a tree with ceramic birds.”  

Mulligan met Walker in Denver at Durst Studio & Gallery, managed by Walker for more than 15 years.

“Joan is the queen bee and knows exactly what to do. We entrust our works to her, and we wouldn’t trust them to anyone else,” Mulligan said. “She’s firing at cone five, which is over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. She takes time away from her own work to help all of us. And if we have a little bit of glaze on the bottom of a piece, Joan will wipe that off, so the piece doesn’t stick.”

Of Walker’s ceramic birds, Mulligan said, “Joan has a style that’s so charming. I love the little eyes of her birds. She spends so much time making each one so personal. And like Joan, the birds have a great sense of humor. She’s a delight. Joan is magical. Magical!”

Walker doesn’t make a big deal of selling her ceramic birds, but they’ve nonetheless found a niche market.

“I give Joan’s birds to people getting married, as birthday gifts. I give them to neighbors and they’re always so well-received and people want more,” Mulligan said.

“People who’ve purchased her birds come back. One guy comes back year after year to get birds for his wife,” Mulligan said. “Joan keeps the price reasonable, and that doesn’t matter what size or how much time she put in making it. She’s like a little machine working on these birds.”

Mulligan shared a story about a time when homeless people were camping in the alley behind the studio. Walker, a former nurse, called Denver police to do a wellness check on the people. And when the officers came in the studio, Walker gave each of the cops a bird for their family.

Ceramic birds in an antique cage

Mulligan has her own collection of Walker’s ceramic birds.

“I have an antique bird cage and perched her birds all over it. I put the bird cage in our front window so people can see,” Mulligan said, “There is some special charm about Joan’s birds born at this studio with the most wonderful energy, and Joan is a key to that.”

When Walker is not at the clay studio, she’s probably with her corgi, Kasey, in her garden — an expansive, Martha Stewart-esque spread with numerous fenced sections, rustic structures and on a pond, a dreamy dock complete with a pergola and built-in benches.  

Mulligan said, “Joan also does fabulous huge ceramic planters that take forever to do, big outdoor pots full of tiles. Beautiful, beautiful! She has them in her garden, which is Shangri-la, the whole space.”

And if Walker’s not in the clay studio or her garden, she might be in her sewing room — a highly organized textile artist’s studio that explains why she’s wearing dangling earrings resembling tiny fabric scissors.

“Joan’s such a creative person,” Mulligan said. “She’s an eclectic and an iconoclast. Her bird tree has lovely energy and makes a gentle statement. It’s not political. She’s saying, ‘Here is some joy for you. Here is a little happiness.’ How many people this tree has inspired! It’s now a point of reference. People say, ‘I live half a mile from the bird tree’.”

Walker purposefully winged it

Walker came to Denver from Detroit to study nursing at Arapahoe Community College, where she later in life — after her three kids went off to college — enrolled in a ceramics class.

“I made 100 birds for a show about 20 years ago, and it was fun,” Walker said. “I wedge the clay to get out all the air bubbles, or it will explode in the kiln. Each bird might be kiln-fired three times.”

Walker later studied with the ceramist Peter Durst at the Art Students League of Denver. Durst convened his classes at Durst Studio & Gallery, which he opened at 1571 S. Broadway in 1989.     

 “I’ve been on South Broadway a long time, and I’ve seen a lot of changes,” Durst said.

When the COVID-19 lockdown hit in 2020, Durst shut down his studio.

“But afterwards, I decided to reopen,” he said. “My time was done as a teacher at the Art Students League. I was getting older, but I enjoyed my students, so I invited six of my favorites, and now we’re all studio mates. We have a great community.”

Durst continues to teach ceramics in Hawaii, create his own ceramic sculptures and open his studio-gallery by appointment.

Fired up to manage the kiln

“Running a ceramic studio involves many different aspects because of the process, and Joan is 100 percent A+ in every one of them,” Durst said. “She is a remarkable woman and does a good job of everything from firing to helping everyone with their work to glaze testing. We have tables full of thousands of glaze test tiles that are very important to ceramic outcomes, and Joan is responsible for all of them.”

Walker said her favorite task is opening the kiln after firing works: “It’s the best. But it’s 2,176 degrees Fahrenheit, so there is pressure firing other people’s work.”

Durst applauded Walker’s bird tree as inspiring public art.

“I think it is a wonderful combination of adapting nature to art and doing it in a wonderful way,” he said. “Joan took a dead tree and — unknown in the dark without recognition initially using a 20-foot ladder — started putting birds in the tree. Initially, she wanted to be unknown, sort of like Banksy.”

The bird tree soon gained notoriety.

“People walk by and out of the corner of their eye see something and have to ask, ‘What is that?’ Joan provokes and provides thoughts and ideas in such an unexpected way in a public place that makes her birds that much more a delight,” said Durst, who also emphasized the intricacies of Walker’s birds.

An uplifting public art installation

“Joan’s birds are beautifully done and that makes this a really amazing art installation,” he said. “Those birds are amazing works of art. Aside from fashioning them, the way she finishes her birds with tissue paper transfers or decals or stencils: She spends many hours on them and all individual one of a kind and each different from the other. Joan’s birds are not nearly as simplistic as they look.”

Nor is the artist. Walker said that in addition to creating her bird tree, one of her life’s most meaningful phases was volunteering for 23 years at Porter Hospice.

“As a nurse, to work with people at the end of life and near death felt like a calling for me,” she said. “I helped people transition out of this world with some dignity and grace.”

Walker continues creating her graceful, winged wonders.

“I don’t care if a bird ever sells, I just have to make it,” she said. “I like funky things. I like color. I love glazing. I love surface treatments. There’s diversity here.”