Arts Rescue Mission -Aid For Aging Artists
P u b l i s h e d W e e k l y, N e w s, A r t s, & S t o r i e s F r o m T e x a s .... U s u a l l y
Vol. 2 No. 12, 08-16-2026
George Banks Sits Down (Accidentally) with Mission News
D. M. Allison, Mission News Orbiter, August 18, 2026 (word count 2,225)
This was the kind of stubbed my toe on a treasure, a completely surprising find during the evening while filming the performance and the venue owners Steve and Debbie Bixby, who are celebrating their 10th year in the former courthouse and renovated jail where they have done a great job turning it into a great music venue and bar. I guarantee you it's worth the 20-minute trip to get there! As you'll see from the interview online, they've had a lot of perhaps unexpectedly well-known talent playing in their venue over the years. Tonight was no exception. Comfortable venue, great sound system constantly monitored by Steve Bixby.
But then the unexpected happened ..... I was standing out in front of the tavern during intermission and George Banks introduced himself.
GB: Aren't we friends on Facebook?
Mission News: Well, my friend I think we are, we've been crossing paths for quite some time on FB.
GB: Weren't you friends with Richard Stout?
Mission News: Yeah, I miss him now.
GB: And his mom? Did you know her? She's passed on.
Mission News: Well, yeah. Of course, she's passed away. Doing Richard's archive, I have pictures of his family going all the way back to the days when his father was an Engineer in Beaumont TX in the early 1940s
GB: We used to have little openings at his house. We used to come there before, about the time the back studio was being built. When Dick was dying, he knew he was dying. All his stuff was laid out there, all these hundreds of pictures. You could just see his whole life unfold there.
GB: Are Laurie and her son doing anything about his work?
Mission News: Sarah Foltz took on the huge responsibility of Richard's archives. I got involved with Richard as a friend. I happened to move in on Bonnie Bray, just down the street. Richard really needed somebody in those last years to help him do his archive. The majority of the materials were already at Sarah Foltz Gallery, so I picked everything up from Sarah Foltz, brought it back to my apartment, and worked with Richard right up until the last days. We did a lot less archiving and a lot more going to lunch than we did actual work.
GB: Yeah. I'd take him out and we'd go down to that Mexican restaurant at the end of Washington.
Mission News: The archiving went on for about another year after Richard passed, and his son Stefan finished paying me to do it. That's an all-day, arduous job. He had more than 1,700 objects in his archive—not his artwork. I'm talking about pictures, letters, things like that.
GB: He was kind of a collector, too. He was big into ceramics.
Mission News: I always thought he was in competition with Dorothy Hood over who kept the most stuff.
GB: There was something new about Dorothy Hood recently. I don't remember if it was a discussion you had or something somebody said. My wife and I got back about a year ago from Corpus Christi.
Mission News: Which is where I'm going next week.
GB: Are you really? They've got this huge Hood park down there, and somebody told me they're sort of the preserver of her large works.
Mission News: Yeah. The museum.
GB: As we walked out of there, there's this monstrous Surles project. I'm kind of friends with him, so I walked all around that thing because it's between the museum and this office building. I mean, it's huge. I couldn't find a title for it anywhere.
Mission News: Oh.
GB: When we got back, I called James Surles and asked him the name of it. He didn't remember. It's huge—the biggest work I've ever seen of his.
Mission News: Wow.
GB: I have a couple of his works.
Mission News: I'll be there first, before I go to San Antonio. I'm covering a couple of events going on there.
GB: So is it all art-oriented?
Mission News: Arts, including music. I'm covering "Whiskey Business" the fundraiser for the Witte Museum Friday night, and then the Kameha-Con festival in San Antonio at the Freeman Coliseum Expo Halls Saturday and Sunday. It's about animators and other creators in the digital world.
GB: Then you'll meet Kelly Bosh. You need to remember that. Really. She's way beyond phenomenal.
(14 images Click On Image To Expand To Full Screen)
Mission News: All my friends think I'm absolutely nuts. They say, "You could get assisted living. You could get money from the government to have an apartment." I tell them, "I don't want an apartment. I want to go."
GB: Were you in the military?
Mission News: No, I was never in the military. But I did six weeks in Bosnia during the war with the first iteration of Arts Rescue Mission, the ARM Outreach Program. We did that for the artists in Sarajevo. This time around I thought, why don't I do it for the older artists in our community in Texas?
Mission News: I've donated my email list, mostly with their permission, as an open resource for people who want to raise money for artists who get hurt, get sick, or have some kind of need—rent, for example.
GB: Kind of like Bonnie and Clyde? For musicians?
Mission News: We'er leaning towards Jack Kerouac. But, exactly. If somebody starts a crowdfund and tells us about it, our board can press a button and 2,500 people get to know about it. They can put down ten bucks or not. We don't have to have a bank account. We don't have to have a bureaucracy. We don't have to go try to get money from the government. NO ARGUING.
Mission News: We're relying on the sympathies of the people already on my old gallery list. They're collectors, artists, musicians. They've already come to my gallery, drunk my cheap wine, played with my dog, and listened to Ed Wilson and Dr. Rock on the patio. I think they're pretty sympathetic to somebody who might need to mend a broken wing.
Mission News: It started when I broke my back about three years ago. Some old gal pals were in my little apartment and I was on the bed. I didn't even know yet whether I had a broken back. It turned out I did—I broke L2, L3, and L4.
GB: Did you go to Liberty Hall?
Mission News: Yes, I did.
GB: Then you remember that big sign out front, that big V-shaped one. I designed that. I fabricated the whole permanent part, and I hung it up there.
Mission News: Wow.
GB: Lori Guthrie at Rice has photographs taken while we were doing that.
Mission News: Lori Guthrie? I remember her. She's an archivist.
GB: Exactly. I was standing on that sign, undoing ropes I'd pulled up from the roof of Liberty Hall.
Mission News: Is that how you broke your back?
GB: No, but I broke my wrist. And now, at eighty, I think falling about nine feet onto concrete probably affected my shoulder, too.
Mission News: Yeah. Wow.
GB: Lori Guthrie at Rice has photographs taken while we were doing that.
Mission News: Lori Guthrie? I remember her. She's an archivist.
GB: Exactly. I was standing on that sign, undoing ropes I'd pulled up from the roof of Liberty Hall.
Mission News: Is that how you broke your back?
GB: No, but I broke my wrist. And now, at eighty, I think falling about nine feet onto concrete probably affected my shoulder, too.
Mission News: Yeah. Wow.
GB: Lori Guthrie at Rice has photographs taken while we were doing that.
Mission News: Norie Guthrie? I've met her. Lisa Barkley, and Krista M. Hollis are at the Menil,
GB: Exactly. I was standing on that sign, undoing ropes I'd pulled up from the roof of Liberty Hall.
Mission News: Is that how you broke your back?
GB: No, but I broke my wrist. And now, at eighty, I think falling about nine feet onto concrete probably affected my shoulder, too.
Mission News: Yeah. Wow.
GB: Sixty years later—or however long it's been. Somewhere around there. You can Google it.
Mission News: I remember your piece—your artwork. Fantastic. So you get what I'm talking about.
Mission News: A couple of old friends were looking at me sideways and saying, "We're not going to give you our money to spend." And I said, "No, no. Just wait. You'll get a signal from somebody else." I'm not asking anyone to give Arts Rescue the money. That misunderstanding needs to be cleared up.
Mission News: We have other sources to pay me and some of the people working on this with me. We don't need a lot of people because we don't have a building. We decided not to have one. Somebody said, "The City of Houston will give you a building for a dollar-a-year lease." I thought, "Great, I can have a gallery." But no—I don't want to spend the money on maintenance.
GB: It'll kill you.
Mission News: Absolutely. So we're a virtual group. It's taken a little while to catch on because there's no building where you can have a party and a big opening and everybody gives you money for something. But if we had a building, it would all go to maintenance. It wouldn't go to helping artists.
Mission News: I'm glad you pulled me aside.
GB:"Oh, I did the album cover for Easter Everywhere."
Mission News: That's the gold cover with the sun on the front? That's yours?
GB: Yeah.
Mission News: Goddamn it. This is amazing.
GB: Now I want to tell you something. Here's what's amazing, if it's true.
Mission News: Well, you could be lying your ass off. I don't know. But I think it's true.
GB: Yeah. We've been kind of bantering back and forth.
Mission News: It was on Facebook. I didn't know who this George Banks guy was. Now I know. I'm going to see if I can get one of those shirts and have you autograph it.
GB: One of these shirts?
Mission News: Yeah. Maybe a Thirteenth Floor Elevators shirt. You know Bob Motte?
Mission News: Motte Thomas?
GB: M-O-T-T, right?
Mission News: Maybe, Yeah. Were you in on the Thirteenth Floor Elevators?
GB: Well, that's a little joke.
Mission News: Oh my God.
GB: Motte Thomas just had an art showing.
Mission News: Yeah.
GB: It was at that little gallery.
Mission News: Yeah, it's that little gallery I didn't get to. It's called the Green something Gallery. I wish I had gone, but I was busy trying to move my life.
GB: Robert showed up later, but I had just left. Anyway, we were sitting there talking, and I liked one or two of Mott's works.
Mission News: Yeah.
GB: But it was three grand. I didn't have three grand. I thought about trading the spare tire from my car or something.
Mission News: Yeah.
GB: Then he started talking about the Thirteenth Floor. Here's what Mott said: "My cousin was the drummer for the Thirteenth Floor Elevators."
Mission News: Wow.
GB: Danny Thomas.
Mission News: Wow.
GB: I said, "Oh, I did the album cover for Easter Everywhere."
Mission News: That's the gold cover with the sun on the front? That's yours?
GB: Yeah.
Mission News: Goddamn it. This is amazing.
GB: Now I want to tell you something. Here's what's amazing, if it's true.
Mission News: Well, you could be lying your ass off. I don't know. But I think it's true.
GB: Do you know Susie DePaul? Susie DeYoung?
Mission News: Susie Paul.
GB: Yes. Just before she passed away, I thought she introduced me to you.
Mission News: Could have.
GB: And you were wondering if I still had that work. Did you work for DeMenil for a while?
Mission News: I had the print studio where Susie Paul was doing her last pieces. She did the piece called Claire with Fly.
GB: I came there shortly before she died.
Mission News: Yeah. Her sister, Claire.
GB: She was almost bald when you were with her.
Mission News: Yeah. Claire with Fly. It's a picture of her sister, and it looks like it's from the 1930s Depression era. She's got a fly on her cheek, and she looks like she's been working all day in the field.
Mission News: I asked Susie about it, and she said, "Oh, we were drinking beer and installing art at the Lawndale Art and Performance Center for something." But the photo is so good.
GB: Here's what amazed me. I have a lot of photographs of Mercedes. Her husband and she were at our home for a party for the newborn Mercedes.
GB: I had eight-by-tens that my wife had taken—she was doing photography at the time. I put them in a package and took them to the gallery where Susie's work had been shown.
Mission News: Deborah Colton?
GB: Deborah Colton. Yeah. I left the photographs there for Mercedes because there was some big event about Susie. Then I learned—maybe from you—that Colton is Bobby Paul's sister.
Mission News: No. I don't think so.
GB: Are you sure?
Mission News: I don't know, but I don't think Deborah Colton is.
GB: I think Susie's husband—Deborah—was a Deborah Paul. I could be wrong. Now I'm wondering whether she kept those photographs or whether Mercedes ever got them. Do you know how to get hold of Mercedes?
Mission News: No, I don't. Okay, and what we're going to do is segue in and hear the band.
GB: Good talking to you I'll give you a call.
So that's how first interview on the road in the orbiter went. It's sure to foster plenty of gossip and rumor, some of which might be true. You know you're at the right music venue when the Denny's is both the landmark to turn off the freeway and your last stop on the way out of town.