John W. Banks

We never met this great Texas folk artist. But we did used to visit his widow, Earlie.

The Banks lived in Houston and grew up in Seguin, Texas. John Banks was a retired bus driver and started doing drawings of his life and childhood. Earlie worked for a family and took their cleaning to a laundrymat. She spent so much time there, that she started taking some of John's pictures to the laundrymat and hanging them on the walls to decorate the place.

Our friend Kay was a university student about this time (early 1980's) and frequented the same laundrymat. She noticed the new pictures on the wall and set out to meet the maker.

She met John Banks and was the first person to start to collecting his pieces.

We have some of Kay's piece available here.
(cick on the images to enlarge and see details)