All Mixed Up

When last I wrote I was in the throes of an artist's block. Yes, that damn petal was driving me to blog. And in the end the blog turned out to be about letting go of expectations.

I'm not sure how I did it, but I nailed the hurdle (you'll tell me if I didn't) and finally finished the tetraptych or quadriptych, which according to Wikipedia are interchangeably used for a four-panel piece such as this. I vacillate between the two depending on which word I can remember to spell at the moment...but I digress.

Family ©  Lissa Banks

Many years ago I moved from east to west to live close to my parents after a marriage, a divorce, numerous jobs, cats, dogs, and three children away. I was there to say goodbye to my father and to meet my mother as a whole human being for the first time in my life. She turned out to be an amalgam of strength and fear, hilarity and timidity, love and bitterness. And she had the softest hands I've ever been graced to have held. She was a difficult woman to be sure: insecure, needy and demanding but loving and devoted. She blesses and tortures me still. Even last night she came to me in a nightmare of sorts!

My first post about this four-in-one painting was how they had come to represent my three sisters and me. Each unique and yet cut from the same cloth. I had expected that's how I'd end up thinking about them in the end. But as usual, I didn't. Not exactly, that is. Expectations dashed once again.

In the end I couldn't put them back into place, I preferred to see them all mixed up. They shine in this way, I think. It causes me, at least, to look at them in a different way.

So maybe they do tell the tale of my sisters and me after all. Maybe I'm looking at us all in new ways now as we are all now solidly in the autumn of our lives... in the same way I had the privilege of looking at my mother in the years before she died. She's in there among the petals, you know, especially the difficult ones, the ones I needed to perfect, most likely just for her.



  For more about my work follow me on Facebook or visit my website Lissa Banks Paintings to learn how to purchase an original, a print or to commission a painting...or find me on Pinterest. Or you can find this and other this and other prints for sale at FineArtAmerica.com.

Tetraptych

Summer came in with a whimper -- cold, damp and generally uninspiring. I decided to spend time on an ambitious project, four paintings, each a quadrant of a whole. A tetraptych.

I suppose I believed that summer would continue as it started so I thought the whole thing would be done pretty quickly. The past three days have been in the 90s. Did I mention I don't have air conditioning? The paint was literally drying on the brush before I could get it to the canvas! I'll have to wait for cool weather to move on. Until then, it's an unfinished project.

Unfinished tetraptych - panel one

It comes as a surprise to me sometimes, the meaning I find in my paintings. I don't start out intending to paint an interpretation of the annunciation, or an homage to my grandmother's garden. Those connections come out of the painting itself. And many times I don't recognize them until I sit down and try to express what a painting means to me as I type these words here, in this blog.

I'm unaware of the thought process that brought me to this place. These four paintings. They are each a piece of a whole. Unique but connected. They are familial but each, hopefully, will stand on its own. 

I realize now they are my sisters and me. We are four. 

None of us are dead ringers for the other. We are separated by the states in which we live, by our own family nuclei. But we are all a piece of a whole. We laugh at the same things. We share a love of food and silliness and each other. We were created separately and brought together and raised as one before splitting off to our lives. 

Weddings and family reunions have slowed down. There just aren't that many occasions to get together. But when we do we see ourselves both as who we were growing up and who we are now, growing older. 

The fierce urgency of youth is slowed by nature. The paint dries on the brush. I'll take my time finishing these four. I'll savor the memories of our lives as I do.

Little Faces

Philanthropy

A while back my daughter-in-law gently asked me if I might donate a painting commission to my grandson's school's auction. Having been on her side of the philanthropy fence in a past lifetime I said "sure" and that was that.

A few months later I got the email. Suddenly I was filled with trepidation. Commissions are a mixed bag. It's flattering to be chosen. It's an honor to have someone have faith in your work. But it's also fraught with lots of uncertainties. What if the collector is hard to please? What if they insist on a difficult project? What started out as an act of generosity and love began to give me agita. 

We exchanged thoughts on the project. I sent her a long email detailing what I needed in terms of a source photo (or photos) and she sent me a delightful image of four small faces. It was going to be a gift to their grandparents. What's not to love? Then I saw it, the little face at the top, the baby. Oy. Babies are difficult. At least for me.

Nate, Callie, Christopher and Nicholas © Lissa Banks 2016

I am reminded of the muffled guffaws in art history class when viewing even Renaissance images of the baby Jesus. What were they thinking? Hadn't they ever seen a baby? If Leonardo had a hard time with the younger set, what was I going to do? Well, I worked my little tushie off and I had an unknown advantage. When time came for me to meet young Nate, now not such a babe in arms, he had miraculously grown into the little boy I'd painted. Divine Providence had offered a way. 

For those of you who read my blog often (despite my sporadic entries), you'll know I'm a fairly dyed in the wool religious skeptic. But there is little else to explain how beautifully it all turned out except my deep desire to make some strangers happy. Maybe that desire is what kept an angel on my shoulder.

  For more about my work follow me on Facebook or visit my website Lissa Banks Paintings to learn how to purchase an original, a print or to commission a painting...or find me on Pinterest. Or you can find this and other this and other prints for sale at FineArtAmerica.com.

Roots

Despite the snow falling outside on this blizzardy day, I'm thinking back to trips I took with my dad to the garden store; him passionate about plants and gardening, me loving sunshine, mud, worms and such. We would return home with flats of annuals and bags of cow manure and my dad would fill pots with petunias and geraniums. The station wagon would stink for days.

Red Geranium © Lissa Banks 2016

I remember my otherwise upright, Republican, pillar of the community father discovering creeping Charlie (aka glechoma hederacea) at a swanky garden party at an Admiral's home on Coronado Island. He surreptitiously pinched off a stem, hoping to coax some roots. I imagine him stashing his pilfered cutting in his pocket and feeling a little bit guilty at the transgression. As I recall my mother was not amused.

That little bit of green did take root. As my father learned, given the right conditions it really takes off. We had it cascading down walls, crawling through planters, threatening to take over our patio. His experiment was an astounding success. His shame melted into pride.

On spring days when I stroll the gravel paths between flats of annuals dripping with water, I find myself gravitating towards geraniums and petunias. But then I remember that maverick corner in my father's soul that led him to pinch a plant at a party. So I try new things. Sometimes they threaten to take over my garden, sometimes they wither and die. Sometimes they become my new favorite thing.

But always, ever constant are those old favorites, the stately red geraniums, the cheerful marigolds, the fragrant and delicate petunias. I imagine they are earthly reminders of lessons learned in the garden with my father.


  For more about my work follow me on Facebook or visit my website Lissa Banks Paintings to learn how to purchase an original, a print or to commission a painting...or find me on Pinterest. Or you can find this and other this and other prints for sale at FineArtAmerica.com.