Lily S. May–Life with Art
The most recent origami booklet I've made is from a woodcut I carved and printed in 1973. It's called Forth Form Variation and is from a series I did playing around with several shapes. I used two pine boards that I lined up to make the whole image. I have loved trees since childhood and… Continue reading Reading Old Prints, 3
I continue turning some of my old prints into origami booklets. And, as so often happens, I've been changing the work in ways I didn't first set out to do. I tried a few booklets with simple collages of some poetry I've written. Then, this morphed into bits of writing about the weather or a… Continue reading Reading Old Prints, 2
I'll be showing you more photos from my trip to Spain, but meanwhile I've begun a project to transform many of my old prints into origami books. I first did this when I sent some prints as mail art, but haven't continued sending them out. Here's the plan which may change over time. I'm going… Continue reading Reading Old Prints
The growth and colours of Spring got me thinking about this oil painting I made a few years before 2010 (I neglected to put the date on it). It's a fantasy of abundant life that I recently brought out of hiding and onto a living room wall. I hadn't thought of making strings of flowers before looking at… Continue reading Abundance
From Mirrors of the Heart Card Deck. © 1994 Lily S. May
Here's a woodcut I made in 1973 from 2 planks of pine. I loved the knots and wood grain and made them part of the print. The image draws, once again, on my love of trees.
In the 1970s, I visited The Virgin Islands several times to see my parents who had moved there. Trees have always given me great solace and joy. There was an enormous kapok tree on the island. I loved that tree and used to go see it and photograph it whenever I travelled there. I often walked between… Continue reading Kapok Tree at Cinnamon Bay
As I meander through the work I've done, I wanted to show you a linocut I made in 1973, two years into first taking up printmaking and signed under my former married name. It's the last copy of the edition that I have and is framed behind glass. So the photos here have some reflections in them.… Continue reading In the Sea
This is a linocut I made in the 1970s under my previous married name, Susan Barsel-Herman, to express my love of autumn. I called the print The Healing Power of Autumn.
Here's another woodcut--this time it's one of the first I made. Some of the earliest prints I made began as scribbled drawings. In "Orange Girl," I included some the lines from the drawing in the print, showing its origins. I recall that I experimented with carving a hard wood--either maple or oak. It wasn't easy,… Continue reading Orange Girl Woodcut
Arts of May 