Mary “Ching” Walters was born in Raleigh, Tennessee, and spent her childhood on a farm just north of Memphis. From an early age, she cultivated her talent for drawing by capturing scenes from her family farm and sketching during frequent trips to the Gulf Coast. Ching accepted her first commission in 1956. Over the decades, her artistic career has spanned a remarkable range of media and subjects. In addition to her large-scale watercolors and acrylics on canvas, she has designed thousands of postage stamps for over 30 foreign countries, as well as countless greeting cards, children’s books, and various commercial products. Her work also holds a permanent place in the public landscape. Three of her designs were cast in bronze by the Mississippi Department of Transportation and installed on the Biloxi Bay Bridge. She is also one of four artists whose work was selected for the ceramic mural that graces the foot of the bridge in Ocean Springs. Not long ago, Ching and her husband Bob spent five years living in a villa in Italy’s Piemonte region, yet the Gulf Coast has always remained her true home. They now reside with their two black Labs in Loxley, Alabama, where Ching maintains a small but productive studio. “I try to portray natural subjects, both flora and fauna, in a fresh and uncluttered way.”