Lily S. May–Life with Art
Here is a poem I wrote in 2013 after a massive ice storm in Toronto. And a photo from the winter of 2017 at the Brickworks. Storm of ice A storm of icehas descended on uslasting over partsof three dayscoating branches and wiresbringing down the electricityacross the city.While the soft grey light remainsI sit writingthinking… Continue reading Storm of Ice
In order to preserve some scratchboard drawings I made in 2015 and 2016, this week I sent files of them off to be printed in a small experimental batch. I decided to print them as a set of postcards or small deck that I've named Unearthed. Here's the process that got me to this stage.… Continue reading Unearthed
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
This is the work I showed a detail of in my last post. It has gone through extreme changes and finally developed into this image that I am now going to stop working on and let be. In some ways it's an awkward piece and I felt it was trying to tell me something, so… Continue reading Raw
The heat wave has now broken, but we had hot and extremely hot weather in Toronto over the past while. During that time, I took to walking in the streets in the evening to listen to the cicadas and crickets. I discovered, to my surprise, that I was present to listening to the sounds of… Continue reading Threshold
I've begun making a series of postcards. Here are the first two I've designed, back from the printer. These are combinations of two poems I've written superimposed on two of my linocuts. You can also see the postcards in my etsy shop. I decided to give the series a name and hit upon naming them in… Continue reading Cedar Postcards
The great great poet and song writer Leonard Cohen died yesterday. I was very fortunate to see and hear him perform a few years ago in Toronto when he filled a stadium with fans of all ages. He and the musicians with him gave the most generous long gracious show. This is in remembrance of… Continue reading Leonard Cohen
As I continue turning some of my early prints into booklets, I'm playing around with words I might include with the prints. This last print I've been working with (the one that's also in my previous post) has a lot of black ink in it. And that got me thinking about some writing I did a… Continue reading A Poem for An Old Woodcut
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
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
Arts of May 