A Diversion

The finished product.

I've been going through an artists' slump. Just not inspired. Being someone who doesn't like being idle I realized that I now had the time to finish a long, put off project to paint a "headboard" for the second guest bedroom.

Inspiration image.

The "guest" who would most likely be occupying that room is the indomitable Charlotte, my granddaughter. As a matter of fact, even if I hadn't yet determined that it would be her room there was little chance it could belong to anyone else. She has claimed it, loudly and definitively. She is two and a half years old after all.

Like many of my home improvement projects, this one came as a result of the previous one, revamping a dark, nasty basement that had sprung a leak. I turned that into a bright and (hopefully) childproof playroom; to accomplish that, I'd poached the small sectional that used to be in Charlotte's room, leaving her with pretty much nothing except her Pack 'n Play. Having spent enough money on the basement I looked for ways to save on the guest room and came up with a painted headboard...like painted on the wall headboard.

There was a ton of inspiration on the internet, but I got mine from a Ballard Design catalog. The clipping sat around in Charlotte's room while I put off the project. She saw it and claimed it as hers too. Well, I guess it was.

I have done other murals in the past, so kind of knew the ropes, but learned some new ropes too on this project, they are:

Chalk was my friend.

• Chalk is a great thing to mark out your design! How did I ever do those things before without it?

• A level saves you a lot of grief. I have a good one that I love. Might request that it enter the crematorium with me at my demise.

• Double the time you think it will take. Yup.

• Don't trust drop cloths. I put my water, paints and brushes on a tray. No chance, well, maybe a small chance of disaster on the white carpet.

• Take pictures of the work as you go. Helps to see what's wrong and lets you write a blog post about painters block!

Charlotte hasn't seen her room all finished yet. Since she's already the proud owner I suspect she won't be particularly wowed but at least I filled a couple of days with a worthwhile endeavor. If you're interested in knowing how I did this I've created a crib sheet. Please feel free to email me with questions if you get stumped!

Step-by-step Instructions: Making a Headboard With Paint (And Without Wood)

Aglow

I met Alicia online. As in an online dating app. But I wasn't looking for a girlfriend, I was checking out the competition.

After countless profiles of women my age in v-neck dresses looking lovingly toward the camera with alluring smiles and dreams of Mr. Right holding hands on the beach at sunset, I came upon her profile. I laughed out loud and had to tell her what a great writer she was and to wish her luck, so I did. That led to a meet up which turned into a friendship. Shortly thereafter she met a great guy and eventually I moved across the country.

From Alicia's Eye © Lissa Banks 2019

Now we are Facebook friends. She posts pictures of her remodel. She posts pictures of hummingbirds at her feeder, her brooding plumeria and moonlight over Los Angeles making me a little homesick. I salivate at the chicken mole she memorializes at a local spot. She's still in love with her man and I'm happy for her happiness.

Then one day she posted a photo of some cut citrus and I asked if I could use it for a painting. Being the generous soul that she is, she said yes. And so I painted it.

There are people that come into our lives and move right on through, like ghosts through a wall. Most of the men I met online were that sort. Others stay and have long lasting influence, both good and bad. And then there are the Alicias whose bright light shines like a beacon now and then, as bright and tart and sweet and aglow as the fruit in her photo, and now, hopefully in my painting. 

Thank you Alicia first for your turn of a phrase and now for your eye for something extraordinary. Please keep sharing that moonlight.

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.

Positively

I can count on my left hand the number of times I can remember her throwing a fit. Her mother will likely disagree. But I find this child one of the most positive people I've ever known...granted, I've only known her a little over two years, her being two years old after all.

Charlotte © Lissa Banks 2018

She's a bit of an old soul in that body. I suspect she is reincarnated from someone who in some way was denied the life they wanted and has been born into this one determined to relish each and every moment...the good and the bad.

While visiting her the other day we sat on the floor of the sunroom, the rug strewn with crayons and markers; boxes and paper marked with abstract figures (her specialty) embellished with a constellation of stickers. She proudly showed me another of her masterpieces, this done with pink pen on the white painted furniture. I tried my best to give her a disapproving scowl but I was powerless against her twinkle and her smile.

One day she may become a surly teenager or a busy woman, too busy for her old Grandma. But at least I'll have this memory of her, radiant, victorious over chastisement. Positively perfect.

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.

In Praise of Pretty

What's not to love about lovely? Why not want to surround yourself with beautiful things?

A while ago an influential individual in the local art scene remarked to me about an artist we both know. He said that their work, up to fairly recently, had been among the sort of "pretty pictures" that he often sees across his desk, but that recently the artist had "upped their game" to a new level. While I agreed that the artist had indeed matured in their medium, I was left with a sour taste in my mouth as I walked away from the conversation. What's wrong with pretty?

Death of Marat by Jean Louie David

Yes, there's a morbid beauty in David's Death of Marat, along with a healthy dose of political  commentary. And there is no doubt in the emotional impact Edvard Munch brought to the canvas with The Scream, especially now. I feel that way when I turn on the news these days.

The Scream by Edvard Munch

There are countless other noteworthy examples: Picasso's screaming bulls' indictment of war in his awe inspiring La Guernica, Michelangelo's pathos laden Pieta and just about anything by Francis
Bacon or Heronimous Bosch. All beautiful in their power and ability to elicit strong emotion.

But sometimes, actually most times, I prefer to surround myself with things that please me like a vase of dahlias or a bowl full of tomatoes or a cat purring on my lap. I thrill to the mastery of John Singer Sargent's palette.

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by John Singer Sargent

Or the meditative calm of Mark Rothko's intimate yet monumental canvases.

Blue Green and Brown by Mark Rothko

And I am calmed by the serenity of Jan Vermeer's interiors. I have not visited the Met if I haven't spent a few minutes in front of this painting.

Young Woman With a Water Pitcher by Johannes Vermeer

So please forgive my flowers, my happy children and the cloud filled skies of my landscapes. I rather like pretty.

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.

Tulip Field Fantasy

Before all things went to hell in a hand basket there was this moment when I managed to get one of the boys to stand still long enough for a quick snapshot before he ran off with his brother to wreck destruction on a good number of tulips. I'm certain, given the number of children at the tulip picking field, the farmers factor this into their overhead but their mother wasn't too happy with their behavior.  Being a grandmother I get to shine these kinds of things on somewhat, though I helped with the roundup and parceled out my share of hairy eyeballs to the miscreants.

Tulip Field Fantasy © Lissa Banks 2018

William loves all things nature. He will caress a newfound earthworm friend, gorges on kale straight from my vegetable garden and giggles with delight at kittens and puppies, newborn lambs and strutting chickens. And of course, there was that night we were all eating lobster that created for him his first existential crisis. So although he hardly stood still long enough to have noticed a single monarch that day, I imagined him surrounded by them in that moment of innocence...before the downfall.

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.

The Joys of Grandparenthood

Being a parent is an awesome task. I remember days, and nights, that I thought it might just kill me. And others when I knew my children saved my life, and sanity.

Surviving my children's childhoods, teenage years, putting them through college and the mute witnessing of their coming into adulthood was both painful and a privilege. A privilege I wouldn't trade for all the riches in the world. We parents are masochists like that.

But the single best perk of having made it through thus far has been being a grandmother.

Joy © Lissa Banks 2018

Experiencing the growing up of little persons without midnight feedings, crushing exhaustion, bee stings, cranky teachers, sullen teenagers and broken hearts lends one a perspective on their development I seem to have forgotten, or maybe I was too busy trying to juggle it all to notice, when my children were little.

I've seen my grandchildren take tentative not quite first steps, try to figure out where to put their tongues in their mouths to say "hello" and I've been the grateful recipient of countless hugs, snuggles and sloppy kisses. Pure joy. And to watch those little ones laugh themselves silly over absolutely nothing brings me to my knees. I adore these little varmints with every inch of my being. They are worth every ding in my baseboards, every broken glass, every lost moment I spend with them. Even without the laughter, they are pure joy.

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.

A Ridiculously Long Time

People often ask how long it takes me to complete a painting. Not having a ready answer I decided to do a little digging and find that I'm astounded at the range. Depending on the size and complexity of the work I've completed paintings in as little as less than three hours to what amounts to as long as 16 eight-hour days of work. Since I average about two and a half hours per sitting, that would mean nearly two months soup to nuts!

All this calculating confirms what I already know, I'm slow.

I just finished a seemingly simple, albeit large (24" x 48"), painting that has taken me now more than three years to finish! I worked on it back in 2015 for a little over a month. I liked it, didn't love it. It just didn't sing, and so it sat propped up on a table in my studio, a nagging reminder of the zing of inspiration and the fizzle of stagnation. 

Clark © Lissa Banks 2018

Twenty-five paintings have intervened. Last week I had enough of looking at my failure and dug back in with abandon. Not sure it was the skills honed from those past few paintings and the increasingly ease I've found in a looser style but I set upon the painting with a devil may care attitude.

The result (after a few short hours of work) is definitely a departure from my recent paintings but I love the freshness. That's what I loved about the image to begin with and I think I've achieved it here.

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.

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SaveSave

What I Wanted

Looking back over the past few years worth of work it makes total sense why I was feeling a bit burned out. Flowers followed by fruit, followed by flowers, flowers and more flowers and then some fruit. I tend to be a creature of habit so I've learned to mix things up now and then...take a new way home, cook some fiddlehead ferns for dinner, move across the country. You know, easy stuff.

All He Wants © Lissa Banks 2018

We were sitting in his living room enjoying a cocktail. The light was just right and he was framed by those huge windows and beautiful woodwork. I snapped the shot then quipped that it would make a good painting, because, it would! At this point I had zero interest in attempting portraiture again but he started nudging me to do it. I resisted and resisted until I didn't.

I thought I was going to transition to landscape for a while but I'd accumulated a whole slew of photos of people, mostly of the young variety, what being a grandmother armed with an iPhone and all. But still, I felt a bit tentative since it'd been a while since I took on someone's likeness. I find children's faces somewhat daunting so I decided to plunge ahead with an adult face, this one of the noodge in chief.

It went well from the start and I found myself in a state of greater freedom to experiment. In this case I kept the figure fairly tight but loosed up on the background elements. It was exhilarating and inspiring.

Maybe it's because the face did go so smoothly and the likeness really was quite good that I am now emboldened to move on to more people and maybe more people and maybe some people and flowers or people in landscape or people and flowers in landscape or just people in flowers. Voila! I have dug myself out of my rut and I'm excited about a new project. Some more people.

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.

Everything's Relative

Here are the ten phases of painting, at least in my book:

• Enthusiasm - Defined as the stage when I have selected an image and can just picture it in my head how it will turn out. I can't wait to start the new project and tend to dive in head first, almost before cleaning my last pallet.

• Optimism - The drawings look good and I've got it transferred to the canvas and have blocked in the color. Everything is going swimmingly and I lose myself in the project. 

• Fear - Suddenly something looks off. The more I try to resolve the issue the worse it seems to get.

• Avoidance - Every time I walk past my studio I wince in pain at the...

• Loss - Of all of my previous enthusiasm and optimism. I find excuses not to paint. This is when a good deal of housework gets done. Even brass gets polished.

• Resolve - Gritting my teeth I convince myself I can fix this and move ahead.

• Despair - Prior fears get the best of me and I start doubting the whole thing.

• Distance - I start looking at it from 20 feet away and, hmmm, it doesn't look half bad. I check it out in the morning as I head down for my coffee and again at night before I go to bed and I start thinking things might be okay.

• Renewal - I take a "to hell with it" attitude and forge ahead. Inevitably the background gets finished and things begin to look good. I add highlights and deepen shadows and I squeak through to...

• Ta da! It all falls into place and I come to love the thing that a few days ago was a hopeless mess. 

Relativity © Lissa Banks 2018

Such is the life cycle of a painting. I named this one Relativity because time seemed to have stood still during its completion. If I hadn't been tracking my hours at the easel I would have sworn it took me weeks and weeks to finish. It didn't...it was a relatively quick finish. The pain and agony are forgotten and I start thinking, mmm, maybe I should start painting people again.

I invite you to visit my website where you can now 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.

Mocking

The fourth in my most recent series of tulip portraits is a departure from the up close and personal nature of its predecessors. It's both simpler and more complex.

I was drawn to the photo for the sinuous nature of the leaves and stem and to the strength of the blossom...so perfect, so proud. And I loved the messy cacophony of the shadows cast by the five-arm chandelier that lit the subject. The flower came together quickly, the shadows less so. As I wrestled with the layers of tint and shade I came to wonder if it would ever fall together. And I wondered if it would ever speak to me beyond the difficulty it was presenting.

Mocking - Chandelier Jealousy © Lissa Banks 2018

It wasn't until it was complete that I saw it for what it was. Those shadows were jealous of the bloom. Hard as they may try to compete, they were but a reflection of the curious perfection that nature always manages to achieve in her infinite variety. They mock the flower but they mock themselves in the process.

I can't help but think about the current state of our humanity. We seem to have forgotten that we are all imperfectly created out of the same oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. We love our children and breathe the same air. We all eat, sleep, yearn, cry, fear, want, laugh and triumph in the same way. And yet, whether it's scrawled on city buildings or plastered on billboards or shared on Twitter, we berate each other and treat each other as if they are not us. We seem oblivious to the fact that as we mock others we, in turn, mock ourselves. How silly, really, it is. Silly if we were only shadows on a wall.

I invite you to visit my website where you can now sign up to receive very infrequent 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.

Getting Brave

I don’t make New Year resolutions but I do try to set annual goals that sometimes take on an aspirational tone. This year’s theme leaned towards being brave and to be vulnerable. I certainly bit off a huge chunk to chew early on. You see, I took the plunge and mounted a solo exhibition.

Believe it or not I’m a quasi-government official, on a strictly volunteer basis…I’m an advocate for the arts here in my little town. I sit on a council whose charge is to distribute state money earmarked for arts and culture via a grant process. We also solicit shows that run in our local library.

When there was a rather large gap in our exhibition calendar I offered to put my paintings up for a month or two. The trick was that I had to pull it all together in a week. YIKES! This was my first time around this block and knew it would all be on me…the hanging, the labels, the whole enchilada. Double YIKES!

Solo show - Norfolk Library 2018

Lucky for me most of my pieces were framed and was able to expedite frames for the ones that weren’t. And I had a son nearby who was willing to help me schlep and hang the show. I pounded out an artist statement and tried to create a rationale for the pieces I selected. It was hard, but an excellent exercise.

Solo show - Norfolk Library 2018

An enthusiastic visitor

I wanted the whole thing to be cohesive but interesting and accessible. I didn’t try to impress anybody because, quite frankly, I didn’t want to come off sounding stupid or highfalutin.  I wouldn’t know for sure how many people wandered through to see my work, I just prayed that someone came to the reception!  Between the flu and the weather the turnout was small but hearty. My biggest fan by far was also my smallest.

When I first started showing my work I was a wreck having avoided it like the plague for so long prior. I’d rationalized that my work was for my own pleasure and not others which allowed me to avoid criticism. So when I finally did show, to my everlasting surprise and pleasure, I found people to be kind at the very worst and encouraging, even enthusiastic, at best. 

I have found a wonderful community of artists who each have sat in an empty space hoping for others to join them for a glass of wine, a bit of comradery and appreciation of the work. 

And I have found great reward in opening up myself, being vulnerable and being brave.

I invite you to visit my website where you can now sign up to receive very infrequent 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.

A Tulip By Any Other Name...

I've embarked on a journey. An experiment to see if I will ever tire of painting tulips, sort of. I just might because despite having spent now more than 30 hours facing this lady's backside I find that I'm at a loss as to what to name her. I really don't like the convention that some artists use of simply naming them nothing but I'm coming up empty. Help!

Unnamed © 2017 Lissa Banks

It all started innocently late spring of last year. My daughter-in-law and I took the grandkids to a tulip farm in Rhode Island. Our excitement and awe of the row upon row of tulips gradually succumbed to frustration as the 5 and 3-year-old ran up and down the aisles, tromped blossoms, decapitating quite a few. Realizing the excursion might be over before it began, I took as many photos as I could and grabbed as many samples of my favorites as possible before we all piled back into the car for an angry mommy return trip.

At home I found myself with a rather rag-tag looking bouquet so decided to attempt to shoot a series of portraits of each individual. There might be as many as nine in all in the end hence my flip remark about getting sick of painting them. Yesterday I thought that might be true, until I started sketches for my next tulip portrait!

So, my dear readers, I wasn't kidding. I need your help naming this painting. What does it evoke for you? Let me know in the comment section or drop me an email or visit my Facebook page. I'm desperate!

  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.

Hibernation

I do things a little differently. I hibernate come spring and emerge again in the fall. To my studio, that is. I suppose I just can't resist the urge to create on earth's canvas while the sun shines and the birds sing. It's about this time of the year that I succumb to a different itch, to dig into my boxes full of tubes of paint and rummage around a year's worth of stashed photos of warmer days seeking inspiration.

Hibernation © Lissa Banks 2016

Motivated by guilt that I've long neglected this room, I rearrange the shelves and scrub the floor while mulling the next project.

I can't really say I've been completely useless the past few months. I've pursued my interest in tulips with, I believe, good result. Regardless, I am marked by the lack of new canvases to offer up to show. It's a bit humiliating. Where did the summer go? Did I sleep through it?

As always, I resolve to do better. To paint more quickly, to seek the muse over distraction. I lack discipline, I tell myself. I will do better, turning to self-affirmations to move me forward.

I do have an ambitious project in mind. It will be large and very pink. It will take me back to the summer spent in my garden. The light of the sun will shine through the canvas and warm me as the days grow cold and dark, drawing me out of my summer hibernation.



  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.

Iconography

In college I loved to decipher, or attempt to at least, the symbolism in the paintings we studied. The musical instrument, a cabbage, a recently extinguished candle, the little dog underfoot, a unicorn in the distance, a map of the world, all spoke volumes about the main characters and the drama unfolding in tableau.

We studied paintings depicting the Virgin Mary as the archangel Gabriel tells her of God's plans for her future. In most cases she takes the news pretty well.

Lily Mae © Lissa Banks 2015

In these paintings, there's usually a representation of the holy spirit somewhere, a beam of light, a glowing dove. Often an open book, conveniently turned to Isaiah 7:14 ("therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son...") which might be why Mary hasn't fainted dead away...she saw it coming. Sometimes there's a vase or another vessel of some sort symbolizing that Mary will carry the yet-to-be-born savior. But perhaps the most common is the lily, symbol of purity.

I remember the day my drift away from religion really picked up speed. Ironically, it was at a church retreat. Searching, like many of us do, for some sort of spiritual ballast, I was attending classes at a local Episcopal church which brought me to the retreat. A small group of us sat on wooden chairs near the altar of a small chapel. The priest confessed to us that he had a hard time swallowing the virgin birth story. I was astounded! This guy? How could this be? The validation I was searching for dissolved faster than the host on my tongue.

Since that day I've come to describe myself as a "cultural Christian" which basically means that I celebrate the holidays and still find my moral compass in the Judeo-Christian tradition. I'm just not that keen on the whole organized stuff. And I'm highly suspicious of a book written by men who claimed God whispered in their ears. I think God, if there is such a being, has a whole lot more to do than ghost write a book for a few carbon units on one of a gazillion flecks of dust blowing through the universe.  But I digress.

When I see a lily I can't help but think of Easter, or of Mary's world being knocked off its axis. But I also can't help but think about the loving touch of a mother and of the sacrifice and servitude that goes along with that territory. I think about a warm and loving woman named Lily Mae -- long, long since gone -- who made my sometimes lonely childhood days a little less so. I can't help but think about the miracle of healing that happens at the kiss on a skinned knee. Lily Mae kissed quite a few.

People turn to the Virgin for intercession, for compassion, to hear their small woes. I talk to my beautiful sisters and the many women who have made my journey lighter by carrying some of my troubles in their pockets. And so, for Lily Mae, and for all of my miraculous sisters who carry on after receiving unwelcome news, whose kisses heal, who persevere, who laugh and stumble and ache and triumph, I dedicate this painting. I love you all.


  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.

Mistaken Identity

I thought I knew him

A good friend of mine, a former good friend of mine, someone who I once believed I loved, did something really stupid one day and ended up in federal prison. He told me he took the bribe but it only happened once. He was caught in a trap. His life was upended.

I stood by him. Helped him out. I was furious at his greed and humbled by the quick turn of fortune. I visited him during his incarceration.

The federal prison he was placed in is a minimum security facility out in the middle of nowhere. There are no fences to keep prisoners in as they walk from building to building but if you are stupid enough to try to escape they don't bring you back there. You go somewhere much worse.

Taft is a hard scrapple place. Not much grows unless someone helps it along, a lot. Oil pumps, giant steel grasshoppers, nod to drivers along the road now and then. Trucks blow past tumbleweeds and stir little else. On my way back from visiting him one February morning this sky presented itself. Inspiration, and something good out of a very bad situation.

Taft © Lissa Banks 2013

Lessons learned

The other day I got an email inquiring about this painting. I'm not sure why, but I didn't do my usual "WHOOP" in response. Instead I went for my morning walk and dealt with it later, with a clear head. Maybe I sensed something was afoot.

The buyer wanted to give it to his wife as an anniversary gift. He wanted to know what inspired me. I demurred, saying that the landscape was striking in its starkness, desolation. After I hit send I thought to my self, "nice sell for a romantic gift!"

Over the next few mornings my buyer peppered me with questions about the purchase, which I readily gave. I also noticed that as days went by, his grammar became odd. His punctuation and syntax uneven. Who forgets to capitalize part of his own name? I became suspicious and began investigating fraud. Then came the kicker...he would pay by check and since he was moving to the Philippines his "shipping agent" would contact me to arrange for delivery. A classic scam. They send you a check, which you deposit and the bank initially clears. Buyer has a change of heart and wants his money back which you oblige. Only later the bank finds it's fraudulent and you're out cash.

I declined the sale and pointed out to the gentleman that he was indeed a scammer. No argument there. Never again heard from the guy.

But it struck me that of all paintings to try to scam me on, he chose this one. The one whose genesis was an equally unsavory act. Could he sense the vulnerability I felt as drove down that road? As I bought the lies told to keep me close at hand? Did it reveal me to be the mark that I had once been?

At least this time I saw the con coming.

  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.

Wide Open Spaces

The Sky's the Limit

I'm partial to skies. I like looking at them, photographing them, imagining them and painting them. So I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that they show up in my paintings. 

I've just begun a series of skies. This is the first entry.

Tangerini Field © Lissa Banks 2015

Tangerini's is a local CSA share farm. (For you city folks, CSA stands for "community supporting agriculture." You invest in the coming crop then share in the bounty, or lack thereof, as the season unfolds.)

Last summer I was there for the tomatoes at $1.00/pound U-Pick event, loading up as much as I could carry to take home and put up for the winter...I realize I'm beginning to sound like Ma Kettle.

I paused to readjust my load, looked right and saw this special little cloud hovering over the field. Perfection. So were the tomatoes. All 25 pounds of them. 

This year I'm taking my wagon. Seriously.

  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.