Lily S. May–Life with Art
I have finally finished the appliqué I've been working on that I struggled with. I made it with merino wool felt, cotton fabric and cotton threads. After sewing, unsewing and resewing the work, here it is. I'm happy to have seen it through to completion. I was inspired to sew the appliqué by the very… Continue reading Finally!
I've been working on an appliqué that has had twists and turns I could have avoided--sewing, unsewing, repairing it finally. Had I followed what I knew I should do to correct technical problems, I would have arrived at the place I am now much faster. The work I didn't want to face has not been… Continue reading Getting Through the Night
I'm in the midst of designing another appliqué, but I wanted to tell you about a recent outing I took. On September 20th, my husband and I drove east out of Toronto to Presqu'ile Provincial Park. Because of the pandemic we have not been able to get out of the city to be in more… Continue reading Presqu’ile Provincial Park
I finished this wool felt wall hanging this week. I worked on it slowly over a month and a half or two months and it was a struggle at times. I sewed and resewed after ripping out stitches that I felt could be improved. I went through many emotions while working that are sometimes part… Continue reading The Meeting
I’ve taken many photographs with my phone over the years. Mostly I think they are remembrances and a sort of digital collection. I’ve turned even more than usual to photographing the sky over the past few months. Here’s several more sky and cloud photos over Toronto that I’ve taken, including one from a winter past.… Continue reading The Sky, 2
Here is another wool felt appliqué I made several years ago. 'Now we are in need of stories" is from a poem I had written that's in an earlier post. I added the words to this piece even though the image is not apparently connected to that poem. Creative licence and the unconscious!
I began working on this wool felt appliqué in the spring and finally finished it (for now anyway) during this past month. At first, when I assembled the shapes, the piece looked like a scene of innocence. That didn't feel right to me because this time has not been innocent what with the arrival of… Continue reading Springtime During the Pandemic
The sky, it feels like freedom, like safety, like a reprieve from this hard time on earth, offering a different perspective that the birds know and inhabit, flying south to the lake in seconds, soaring and diving with grace. I imagine flying with the birds, unchained from fear and vertigo, into the dusk clouds as… Continue reading The Sky
There is a small, excellent museum in Toronto called the Textile Museum of Canada. It re-opened recently and I went there on the weekend to see the work of one of my favourite artists, Anna Torma. She does large scale hand embroidered pieces that are spectacular. Her exhibition is called Permanent Danger after a piece… Continue reading Anna Torma at The Textile Museum
I’ve been contemplating what to post for weeks. The artwork I’m doing now is not finished and I’m not ready to show it in its unfinished state. So I’ve decided to post a linocut from 1989 that I printed on some T-shirts. I had scribbled an image on a lino block and carved it following… Continue reading Face
Arts of May 