Solstice, Birthdays and Flowers

I don't think it's my imagination that spring has been memorably rainy this year. It is raining now as I type, a downpour actually. Since our summer is short here in New England the natives are restless for their time in the sun: beaches, cookouts, and general frolicking about. We yearn for it come January. March brings glimmers of hope. April routinely disappoints. But May and June are glorious. Just not this year.

As a result my garden is flourishing, though with an even ratio of weeds to flowers. Inside it's been a different story, here the flowers have bloomed.

Solstice © Lissa Banks 2019

I love birthdays. Seven years ago I celebrated a belated, but significant, one with family and friends in my backyard. It was pretty special. Everyone was there. Music played, festive lights hung from treetops and  twinkled in the bushes, and little vases filled with every sort of red flower lined the long, long table where we ate and toasted and laughed. The next morning I found all those little vases crammed on a small table on my deck. It was spectacular. I ran to get my camera and tripod and snapped as many photos as I could. I wish I had gotten more. Those photos were the beginning of what has become my obsession with painting flowers.

The first three works, Red Party Flower I, Red Party Flowers II and Red Party Flowers III, commemorated the party and opened the gates into a deep exploration into flowers, and particularly tulips. Nineteen paintings in total.

It's fitting that I finished this, the 19th floral, today as it marks the summer solstice, pouring rain notwithstanding. A time when not just New Englanders celebrate the moment when the sun traverses the northernmost arc in the heavens. The demarcation from one season to the next, a celebration of light and driving out of demons it marks a day of transition for me this year as well. This will be my last tulip portrait for a while.

It will be interesting to see how long I can stay away. They are the demons I have a hard time driving out of my studio.

I invite you to visit my website where you can sign up to receive now and again emails that will keep you up to date with where I’m showing, when I post these musings, and when I am offering special sales and promotions! My site is secure and I PROMISE never to sell your information.

  For more about my work follow me on Facebook or visit my website Lissa Banks Paintings to learn how to purchase an original. You can purchase prints for sale at  FineArtAmerica.com.

Pas de Deux

He wondered out loud, what is love now that we are in the last (two, dare I say three) decades of our lives? I said that I wasn't sure, but what I did know was that it was different from the deep crushes of middle school and beyond that, the urgent, hormone-fueled passion of the reproductive years.

Pas de Deux © Lissa Banks 2019

Deeper into our lives we accumulate scars of disappointment and betrayal. These cast a shadow of suspect on others' intentions and cultivate cynicism. Small accomplishments build strength and independence over the years. Eventually we learn who we really are and, with that, what we want and what we won't accept. In short, we narrow our parameters as we broaden as human beings. It's both the gift and the curse of getting older; as we long for connection it becomes easier being apart.

I remember junior high dances: the crepe paper and fruit punch, teachers clustered on the perimeter and mobs of girls and mobs of boys eyeing each other with longing and fear. Cheap cologne and perspiration filled the air as damp hands touched and couples stepped tentatively into the center of the room. Awkward gyrations were met by giggles and taunts offstage. The music stopped and if you didn't like your partner you'd run back to your gang and recover from the humiliation. If you did, you stayed and danced again and again. A date at the movies might be planned. St. Christopher medals exchanged. Such was budding love... for a week or two.

When we pair off into marital bliss we learn about a new, deeper kind of love. The kind that allows for compromise and sleepless nights and changes in plans. There's sickness and health and not everyone emerges unscathed. I'm not sure who are the lucky ones, those who celebrate anniversaries of nuptials longer than a life well-lived or those who switch gears and go solo.

We dance the dance throughout life. With suitors and blind dates and girlfriends and boyfriends and spouses we dance the graceful, inspired, painful, disappointing, sensual, desperate, heartbreaking, dutiful, chaotic, blind, uplifting, affirming and transcendent dance. A pas de deux for our lives.

I invite you to visit my website where you can sign up to receive now and again emails that will keep you up to date with where I’m showing, when I post these musings, and when I am offering special sales and promotions! My site is secure and I PROMISE never to sell your information.

  For more about my work follow me on Facebook or visit my website Lissa Banks Paintings to learn how to purchase an original. You can purchase prints for sale at  FineArtAmerica.com.