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.

Unsheltered

I must be no more than three in the portrait. I was exempt from posing, the artist having to work from a photograph to imagine my likeness...not to mention personality. As a result, I appear to be a docile creature, more like the doll I'm holding than the stick straight hair, skinned knee ruffian that I actually was. My sisters look more like themselves, at least to me...none of them ever really approved so I ended up with the painting after my eldest sister, its most recent custodian, died last fall.

Banks Girls by Doris Porter 1955

The painting was always a bit of a sore spot, but not so sore as to have been cast out of our households. Now that it's landed in mine I'm thinking about it a little differently.

It's not a common thing these days, or way back in the mid 1950s for that matter, to have one's children's portrait painted but my parents did. They had neighbors, a married couple, both artists and professors at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor back in the day. (It's hard for this child of the 60s to imagine her decidedly conservative parents cavorting with "artsy" professorial types but cavort they must have.) These artists' influence flavored my parents' world, and subsequently my own, from then on.

Carlos Lopez - Untitled

Although my most recent painting is a far cry from the dark, symbolic, expressionist paintings or the lively ink sketches that Carlos painted, I feel a kindred link to him. And I thank him for that.

Unsheltered © Lissa Banks 2018

All four of us sisters were encouraged to stretch our creative imaginations in our own ways. And though it has taken me until my golden years to share my work with you and others, I know that my parents' openness to the importance of art and creativity paved my way. I'm just a late bloomer I suppose.

My parents most certainly created a safe place for us to nurture our abilities. They provided the paints and brushes, the fabric and thread, the clay and tiles and grout and ink and paper with which we grew, sheltered and encouraged. Their own imaginations were fertile ground to our own, and for that I am most grateful. So I'm looking at that old painting with new eyes. It represents a nascent seed that they planted in me, that most definitely not placid pageboy hairdo'd girl in the front.



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.

Winter's Warmth

Among tattered sticky notes, phone extensions listings, memos, meeting dates and emergency procedures, round little faces of friends, family and colleagues' babies and grand babies colored the bulletin board beside my desk. I didn't put all I received up there, just the ones that made me happy.

Before the Snowball Fight  ©  Lissa Banks 2014

This one was a keeper. I've always loved Violet's expression, adoration and mischievousness rolled into one. And Richard, blissfully unaware of what might be forming in Violet's mitten, the big brother embracing his little sister.

I thank my nephew for allowing me to use his photo to create this painting. The bulletin board stayed with the job but these faces, and sibling love and rivalry, live on.