While waiting to present her depiction of the local VFW hall to members of the veterans’ associations, Deborah Walkowiak was complimented by several attendees on her lovely photograph.

The thing is, her prizewinning piece of art was, in fact, a painting. The lifelike depiction of VFW Post 7134 was motivated by a seemingly nondescript sign.“I drive past this on a regular basis, but when they hung this sign up for ‘Veterans Wanted,’ I could never look away from it. It kept drawing me back in. To me, even though it’s just a call for membership, I saw it as taking on a dual meaning. It just seemed to instill a particular type of mood that needed to be conveyed,” Walkowiak said.Walkowiak poured hours of effort and materials into the work, planning and editing the details carefully.“Time just escapes me when I paint. I painted this one over the winter, but I took the photograph last summer. My own artistic license made changes to it, just brought it a little bit more to life. It’s hours every day, stepping back, tweaking, going back and reworking something,” Walkowiak said.The piece was originally submitted to the Concourse Club of Palmerton, which held its annual Art and Photography Exhibit on Saturday and Sunday along with the Palmerton Community Festival. Walkowiak won first place, Best of Show, and the People’s Choice awards in her category. It was donated to the local veterans’ association during a small presentation at Palmerton High School’s football field on Wednesday.“The talent the coach’s wife has, it’s so beautiful,” Richard Nothstein said of Walkowiak and her painting.Walkowiak is a certified art teacher who left the classroom to raise her family, though she continues to develop and perfect her skills to this day.“I just continue to keep taking workshops and pushing myself. I always looked at it as elevating my students, getting them prepared for college, so I knew I had to keep getting better,” Walkowiak said.