If art celebrates life, then the folk art of Tommy Walsh celebrates the expressive form of his will to life life to it's fullest.  His art is his life.  To Walsh, creativity is synonymous with independence.

The purity of his work is qualified by his lack of formal training.   The depth of his soul and his will to live, not merely exist, is captured in each layered stroke of crayon or colored pencil.  Art in its purest form is as valuable as art in it highest form to Walsh.  This approach enable him to take basic materials and use them to embellish themes inspired from the seaside community he lives in along the shores of Virginia Beach, Virginia.  Walsh's artwork reflects his hues of his community.  His sometimes whimsical imagery allows him to communicate emotions and a joie di vivre that enables his patrons to take with them a little of his fortitude.

The tommy Walsh web site is dedicated to the Dolphin Club.  Walsh, himself, is a survivor of a violent attack.  He was shot in the head during a robbery attempt.  He spent eight months with therapists until he could speak, read and write again.  With a bullet still lodged in his brain, learning to write again was difficult enough, but one would think that producing artwork would be out ot the question.  Walsh says his artwork allows him to express himself in a manner more verbosely   than any form of script.  His themes are surrealistic locales of his imagination where he finds where he finds peace from the memory of near tragic experience.

Walsh is a local fixture along the oceanfront of Virginia Beach, which he uses as inspiration for most of his work.  He markets his art from a treasured, worn portfolio he keeps in a wire basket on the back of a customized quadracycle.  His website is used to inspire others, and act as a beacon of home for victims of violent crimes.  Walsh's story and art touches the survivor in all of us.  Though his challenges are physical, his art illustrates that the creativeness in the human spirit isn't restrained by
physical limitation.  (author not listed)