Wellfleet, Cape Cod

A young unmarried couple decided that the Banners looked romantic on Mayo Beach at sunset and asked to photograph us. They wanted to know how long we had been married (52 years) and how we met.

Strange Memories

Before we got married, my mother told us we did not deserve to have nice pots and pans because we did not scour the bottoms.

Large stainless steel pan, found on the curb in front of a neighbor’s house in Takoma Park, with lid, around 2012. The handle frequently needs tightening, but it can cook a whole cabbage with onions.

What Happens to Art When it is not Bought?

Many years ago we knew an older artist whose work was very well respected in the local art community. She painted large colorful abstract, often flowery, paintings in oil paint, and would have an annual or biennial show at her cooperative DC gallery. We attended what we suspected would be one of her last shows, as she was planning to move to a retirement community. We decided to buy a large painting, unusually figurative, with images of her mother and her daughter on the family farm. We paid $900, more than we had ever paid for art before. Later we learned that she had discarded her entire output before she moved. There remains one painting in her former church. What was not purchased or given to her family went to the landfill.

Joseph Brodsky, on Poetry

Joseph Brodsky

“… it must be pointed out that the old adage about a poet’s role in, or his duty to, his society puts the entire issue upside down. If one can speak of the social function of somebody who is essentially self-employed, then the social function of a poet is writing, which he does not by society’s appointment but by his own volition. His only duty is to his language, that is, to write well. By writing, especially by writing well, in the language of his society, a poet takes a large step toward it. It is society’s job to meet him halfway, that is, to open his book and to read it.

If one can speak of any dereliction of duty here, it’s not on the part of the poet, for he keeps writing. Now, poetry is the supreme form of human locution in any culture. By failing to read or listen to poets, a society dooms itself to inferior modes of articulation - of the politician, or the salesman, or the charlatan - in short, to its own. It forfeits, in other words, its own evolutionary potential, for what distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom is precisely the gift of speech. The charge frequently leveled against poetry - that it is difficult, obscure, hermetic, and whatnot - indicates not the state of poetry but, frankly, the rung of the evolutionary ladder on which society is stuck.”

Wellfleet Public Library Concert

Cellist Emma Hays Johnson and I performed Beethoven and Brahms Sonatas at the Wellfleet Public Library to a very enthusiastic audience of 60 people. Marilyn discreetly took some clips on her phone.

From Beethoven Sonata #5, second movement.

From Brahms Sonata #1, first movement.

Bob Dylan: Being 80

“The best thing about being 80 is that you outlive the clocks that have been chasing you. It’s freedom from that lie that anything was ever under control. You don’t chase the parade anymore. You’re an old king from some vanished country. You’re harder to program. You’re not rushing to become anything and you’re not haunted by things that you did. You’re haunted by how little of it really mattered in the way you thought it would.

The worst thing about being 80 is that you still want to say yes to everything, but the world moves without asking. The old fire in your heart still tells you to do this and that, but your body says we already did it. Also, nothing surprises you. It sounds like a luxury but it’s not, and also you’ve run out of illusions. People treat you like either you’ve solved something or you’ve lost something, and you haven’t. You see life repeating itself everywhere.

The really worst part about being 80 is that you find, at last, you’ve got an understanding of something that might have altered everything in the past, had it come at a time when something could still be altered. When you’re young you think that time moves forward. At 80 you know that it doesn’t, it stands still. We’re the ones that move.”

More photos: Chelsea

Celia Paul, self-portrait (Gladstone Gallery)

Celia Paul, portrait of her mother (Gladstone Gallery)

A Visit with Betsy Damon

Artist Betsy Damon has had a tremendous influence on many people’s lives, including Marilyn’s and mine. We had the privilege of visiting her Brooklyn studio while we were in NY. Her recent work is very beautiful and exciting!

Betsy and Mar at the Ceres opening.

Betsy Damon

More NY Ceres Opening

Mar claims she used photos of her own mouth to get the shark drawing right.

In NY people seem to “eat” art! (But unfortunately rarely buy it).

How the skyscrapers get their water.

Magic Watering Can (Lonnie Holley)

Lonnie Holley

It is time to re-post Lonnie Holley’s magic watering can, the quintessential symbol of the arts. “That is how the arts look to us - they thrive and survive on their own creativity and divine sourcing.” 

New York

We just got back from a week in NY, installing Marilyn’s art show at Ceres Gallery in Chelsea.

With Ceres Gallery director, Stephanie Benson

These young artists wanted to know what it takes to continue to do art seriously into your 80’s, when everything seems to be against you.

Youth and glamour at the opening reception.

Marilyn Banner

Immigration

“The destruction of America’s bedrock, its welcome to immigrants, has created labor shortages for industries including hospitality, agriculture, and building. It has deprived American corporations and universities of the world’s best talent. It has devastated local communities, harming local businesses and real estate markets. It has deprived Treasury of billions in taxes. It has cost taxpayers billions directly, as private contractors cage human beings to rack up per diem payments, to say nothing about the overpaid undertrained goons snatching grannies from the street.”

emptywheel, April 21, 2026

Like Baltimore

(Thanks to Marilyn, who sent me this post, suggesting similarities to WMV). From “The Center Will Hold”, Joey Lico on Substack:

“Artists working in places like Baltimore are not waiting for systems to correct themselves. They are building something parallel — small, temporary structures where different ways of living and thinking can take hold. [Derrick] Adams mentioned something a professor once told him: Artists are magicians. It sounded casual in the moment. But it stayed with me. Because what artists actually do — at their best — is not just make objects. They make conditions. They create temporary worlds where different rules apply. Where conversation shifts. Where people encounter each other differently. Most of these worlds are small. Many disappear. But some don’t.”

I ran across another quotation, from Alan Elrod, along similar lines:

“I think organizing and winning the elections are great. I think doing things in your community is more important. This is a generational fight. And beating Trump and beating MAGA at the polls is great. But if you don’t get out there and know your neighbors, if you don’t get out there and try to fix the social capital problem we have—a book club, start a movie night club, do something like that—if you don’t do those things and engage in those kinds of face-to-face interactions that really revive civic life around you, where you are, then I don’t think that this is a problem that we’re going to get out of anytime soon. That’s my hopeful message, actually, because I am hopeful about it. But winning an election is actually the short-term fix. Doing this stuff is the long-term.”

Neighborhood Recognition

The Long Branch-Sligo Community Association newsletter has featured our events! Thanks to Laura Nelson and Jim Della-Giacoma.

Lincoln on No Kings

Facsimile of Lincoln’s letter to William Herndon

From “The King’s Congress” by William Kristol, in the Bulwark

From Lincoln’s letter to Herndon:

But to return to your position: Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, is to and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose– and you allow him to make war at pleasure– Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much as you propose– If, to-day, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, "I see no probability of the British invading us" but he will say to you "be silent; I see it, if you dont"–

The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons—Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object– This, our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us– But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where Kings have always stood– Write soon again–

Yours truly, A Lincoln

Money and Art

Money and art do not mix well. I once offered loans of M’s paintings to my colleagues at work, who eagerly chose pieces for their offices, and in some cases their homes. After a year or so, I asked for them back, unless they wished to purchase them. No one wanted to return the paintings, but neither did anyone want to pay for them. It took a surprising amount of effort to get them back.

On the other hand, I have made deals to pay some musicians in art credits, and this has worked out quite well. The deal is this: I pay either $125 per service in cash, or $250 in art credits. If they choose art credits, these mount up pretty fast. One concert plus three rehearsals is already $1000 in art credits. Five concerts could be more than $6000. The musician picks the art, and I pay the artist what I would have paid the musician in cash, i.e., half the value of the art credits. This is a good deal for all of us (if the musician loves the art). An art gallery would take 50%, so the artist is not really taking a loss. I view this as a kind of alternate economy. Now, one musician has taken this a step further, and has made the art available to her friends and relations. They are encouraged to select pieces, which they can receive as Christmas presents, as she accumulates credits. At least 20 paintings have been placed in this way.

What is a painting worth? To the IRS it is very simple: for deduction purposes, it is worth the value of the canvas and the paint applied (no hourly labor costs allowed), i.e., about $25. For taxation purposes, it is worth whatever the last purchaser of a similar item paid for it. If a painting sold for $4000 and you have an unsold inventory of 300 in your storage unit, they will assess your estate at $1.2 million. Not fair? Duh!

An art lover who covets a piece asks, how much is it? Well, the frame was $150, and the artist can’t bear to get less than $250 for herself, so the minimum price would be $400. Ouch, the collector says, $400 is too much for my budget! She offers $300, and the artist says OK, because the collector clearly loves the piece, and it will have a good home.

We purchase art, which is a very good discipline, if you expect other people to do it. We have purchased several pieces for $900-$1500, and have had no regrets. We have purchased many pieces for between $60 and $500, that are displayed all over our house. The only regrets are for the pieces we did not buy from artists who later passed away and their work disappeared, or from artists who became so famous that their work is now unaffordable.

Liz Vail, oil on canvas, 36”x36”; the artists mother and daughter on the farm. collection of Marilyn & Carl Banner

Some of the artists whose works we have purchased (along with a few gifts and trades): Schroeder Cherry, Lisa Rosenstein, Bob Henry, Alonzo Davis, Michael David, Lori Anne Boocks, Alice Sims, Mei Mei Chang, Travis Childers, Julee Dickerson-Thompson, Mary McCoy, Howard McCoy, Paul Volker, Margaret Paris, Roberta Staat, Ellen Hart, Francy Caprino, Carol Hamoy, Marvin Bileck, Liz Vail, Donna Coleman, Celeste Wiser, Barbara Bickley, Ruth Bauer-Neustadter, Debra Claffey, Michael Billie, Elizabeth Vismans, Jill Lion, Dominie Nash, Lisa Pressman, Catherine Cummings, Sandy Lupton, Alvin Thomas, Amdy Adje, Matt Sesow, Dana Ellyn, Carol MacDonald, Tania Kravath, Megan Hinton, Joyce Weinstein, Pat Blakemore, Charlie Buehler, Jane Rosser, and a young Salvadoran-American artist whose signature is illegible.

Ceija Stojka at the Drawing Center in NY

“Auschwitz is only sleeping.”

Untitled, 2005

We spent several hours at the Ceija Stojka exhibit at the Drawing Center in NY. I left in tears.

“The Beautiful Women of Auschwitz”, 1997

New York Opening

Opening party at M. David & Co. Gallery at ArtCake in Industry City, Brooklyn, in front of Michael David’s new painting/construction.

This little girl liked the art!

Marilyn in front of Michael David’s work.

Marilyn is part of Michael David’s “Yellow Chair” Symposia seminar series.

We own a small piece.

Art by Michael David, in the collection of Marilyn & Carl Banner

Rant #355

AI and Spotify have forced real music underground. Real music is imperfect; it is not auto-tuned, pieced together, studio edited, speeded up, over-dubbed, or ‘enhanced’ by selective amplification. Wrong notes, false entrances, memory lapses, coughs, and interruptions are all part of the deal, if you do not want to be just entertained by an f_ing machine.