Lily S. May–Life with Art
I have kept journals--diaries--on and off for the past 40 or more years. In the 1990s and early 00s, I hand wrote a huge amount in dozens and dozens of lined notebooks--mostly recording my dreams and feelings but also world events and my activities. I've been working on a big project, going through my journals… Continue reading The Nature of Making Art
Here's another gouache painting I made in 1997. It's part of the series of brightly coloured spontaneous works I did. I've also listed this one in my etsy shop.
When my father died in 2007, I took up oil painting again after not having painted with oils for many years. I made the three paintings in this post to express some of my feelings about his death and my life. Each one includes a self-portrait plus a portrait of him. In the final painting,… Continue reading Portraits on the Theme of My Father’s Death
This week I received beautiful mail art from Nancy Bell Scott in response to some work I sent her. A lovely surprise. The envelope is from old sheet music and the work inside is one of her wonderful collages. Thank you, Nancy! P.S.: If anyone wants to send me mail art, my address has changed!… Continue reading Mail Art from Nancy
I’m continuing to refashion my old linocuts and woodcuts. I’ve been thinking of quilting some of my prints for a few years and decided to begin the process with this small 5 x 7 inch linocut. Once again, my aim was to do the work with a sense of freedom. That’s why I used large… Continue reading Paper Quilt from “Flower Elephants” Linocut
As I’ve continued looking through my old prints and refashioning them, I came upon another linocut I made in the 1970s that I called Roots and Ruins. This is a scene from my visits to the Virgin Islands years ago. A favourite site of mine was a place, now wooded, which had once held a… Continue reading Roots and Ruins
I don’t think of myself as a photographer, but since I take my camera with me most days, I’ve decided to show you some of the photographs I take. The ones in this post are from the University of Toronto campus last week. Sometimes a scene calls out to me to be taken in… Continue reading Photography
I've been thinking about the work I've done in the past, some of which I have hanging on walls I walk past daily. One media I greatly enjoyed working with was wool. For several years, I used merino wool roving to make small felt wall hangings, purses and ornaments. I used the wet felting method which… Continue reading Feltmaking
I no longer have any art work that I did between the age of three and my early twenties, other than one or two pieces that are now on relatives’ walls. I would love to see some of that lost work today. I have, however, kept a small sketchbook and index cards from the late… Continue reading Art and Intuition
Arts of May 