Mitch Billis
Mitch Billis sees himself as an explorer, constantly searching for meaning in his life and in art. Paraphrasing Robert Henri’s words in The Art Spirit, Billis says, “The purpose of doing a painting is not really to do that painting; it’s to attain a state of being, and that’s what I try to do daily in my life.”
As a young child, in Frankfort, New York, Mitch enjoyed drawing; however he was discouraged from choosing art as a career. “The idea of ever making a living painting was never even thought of as a possibility,” he says. He was encouraged to study math and science.
After graduating as Salutatorian in his high school class, he went to Clarkson University, in Potsdam, New York. He had a scholarship to play basketball, and majored in engineering.
He switched careers and pursued a master’s degree, in mathematics, at the University of New Hampshire, and then a PhD. in math, from the University of Utah. He was a professor for eight years at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. Mitch says, “When I went to math conferences in various cities, I spent more time in the art museums than at the meetings.
In the early 1970’s, during his fifth year of teaching, Billis attended a workshop given by Valfred Thelin and it changed his life. “In the first 10 seconds, when I saw Val paint, and those colors started to blend, I knew that’s what I wanted to do,” says Billis. “That was a real turning point for me.” He resigned from teaching a year and a half later, and studied briefly with Don Stone.
Billis had been showing his work only in the west when in 1978 he moved to Boothbay Harbor, Maine as a single parent. He still lives in Boothbay Harbor today with his wife Kathleen, whom he met when he stopped at her bed & breakfast in California for a cup of coffee. Once his kids graduated from high school, he decided to remain in Maine and paint primarily in New England year-round. He travels south in the spring and to Europe in the summer, mostly in Italy.
His landscapes display his interest in spontaneity and experimentation. To choose a subject for his paintings, he heads outside without any preconceived notions. “What I try to do is be a sounding board to my environment and see what strikes me,” he says.