Lily S. May–Life with Art
It's fall in Toronto. Our election is over and we do have a new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, from the Liberal Party. The Blue Jays are in a do or die situation. And the glorious leaves are shining gold. Here's a photo I took late last week while returning home from a visit with a… Continue reading Autumn in Toronto
It's federal election day in Canada. In honour of that, and after voting earlier this morning, I'm posting this portrait I painted of our Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, in 2009. It was autumn then, as now, and I happened to have some ornamental gourds in my apartment. I placed one of them on his head… Continue reading Election Day in Canada
A few years ago, I entered several notebooks and photographs in The Sketchbook Project. In 2012, I sent away for another moleskine book. I had previously written a poem that I thought would paradoxically work with the topic "Fill me with Stories." I made a book using very simple line drawings and printing. I can't recall why… Continue reading The Emptiness We Require
While out for a stroll on the boardwalk in Toronto the other week, we came upon a happy surprise...
We went kayaking 2 days later on the same stream in Algonquin Park and saw more scenes of great beauty.
Earlier this month I was in Algonquin Park in Ontario. There we went for day hikes and went kayaking off Lake Opeongo. On a day when the stream was totally smooth, we saw reflections so clear that you couldn’t, at first, tell where the water and land began or ended. Fabulous designs were formed from… Continue reading Diamond Reflections
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
I've often included images of nature in my artwork. Recently, I came across these two photos of woodcuts from the 1970s, one of which I've sold out. So it's great to have a record of it. When I began printmaking, I became interested in depicting trees showing both their branches and roots as in these… Continue reading Grain
I have two blogs--this and a nature blog that I've hardly posted on in a while. So far I've divided these two parts of my life in my blogs but I've decided to merge them. After all, being in nature goes hand in hand with my being able to create. So I'm including a new heading of nature photography in… Continue reading Merger
I've been very affected by the report of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission that came out last week. The widespread extreme abuse of aboriginal children by the government and churches who ran residential schools was aptly named cultural genocide. In addition to presenting chilling historical testimonies of survivors and noting the thousands of children who… Continue reading Truth and Reconciliation
Arts of May 