Elizabeth May, Eocene Artist

Artist, writer, and photographer Elizabeth May and I spoke by phone and email about her Eocene art. Born in San Francisco, California, May attended university in Berkley, California, then joined the Peace Corp and worked in the South Pacific. Her eclectic resume includes working as a cadet and teacher on a three-masted sailing ship based out of Bergen, Norway; taking the teacher's course with Outward Bound in Colorado; and working in special education in the Washington schools. Her one-man show at The Met Gallery in Spokane, Washington concluded in October. Her Eocene Art series has been exhibited at the Naples Gallery in Idaho; in Napa Valley, California; in Lahina, Maui; and in the Stonerose Interpretive Center in Republic, Washington.

In 1996, Elizabeth May, with her two sons, moved to the small town of Republic, Washington. She joined her husband, John May, a geologist, who had migrated to Republic the year before to accept a job with the Echo Bay Mining Company. While first working for the State Parks Department, and then the local high school, May indulged her quietly growing passion for fossil hunting in Ferry County's rich Eocene fossil beds.

Though May was initially attracted to the perfectly formed 50-million-year-old impressions of leaves and flowers that she unearthed at the Stonerose Interpretative Center's public fossil site, she soon found her interest turning to the detritus of other fossil hunters' searches. There, in piles of broken shale, she "...found beautiful rocks that people were walking on..." containing bits of plant fossil and colorful discolorations that were the result of chemical and mineral reactions. Intrigued by the small images she was finding, she soon expanded her fossil search beyond Stonerose's publicly owned fossil beds to privately owned sites, where May says she began "…building a library of images for the Eocene Series…a collection of rocks with abstracts, and oriental and celestial images."

May doesn't remember the first rock she framed, though she remembers that it was in 1997 or 1998 when she first experimented artistically with her rocks and fossils. "I was focused on my writing and photography at the time." she says. "At first I just gave my framed rocks away." It wasn't until a past curator of the Stonerose Interpretive center began displaying her artwork, and the owner of a local restaurant offered her blank walls from which to hang and sell her work, that she began looking at her work as something more than the past time of an amateur geologist.

There, in piles of broken shale, she "...found beautiful rocks that people were walking on..."

Even so, she might never have progressed beyond the simple framing of her geological finds, if not for a pair of computer microscopes acquired through the para-educator program. In the process of training herself to use the unfamiliar equipment, she saw her fossils enlarged on a screen. It was the first time she'd seen them digitally. She remembers being enthralled by what she saw. "Oh my goodness. Look at the design in this rock."

That moment marked a pivotal step in May's transition from rock hound to geology artist. Gone were her simple presentations of framed rocks. Instead, she was digitally reproducing, enlarging, and transforming two- by three-inch rocks and fossils into vivid, eye-popping images that range in size from four by five postcards to three-foot canvases.

After working initially with paper images, she began experimenting with canvas. It rapidly became her printing medium of choice. She explains that reproductions printed on canvas have greater depth and better capture the texture of the rock. Each of her images is created with archival ink and canvas that includes UV inhibitors. She then frames them using linen inner frames. "The [rock] art is so complicated; you don't want it to compete with the frame." She adds, "The resulting images have the look of oils."

After viewing her evocative, dreamlike interpretations of geology, May is often asked if she enhances her images before printing them. "I don't even wash them. I dust them off if they need it and then just work with what the earth shows me." She limits herself to cropping and positioning, which she accomplishes through the use of software tools like CorelDraw.

"I think of my images as prototypic-petroglyphs," she says describing a wonderful rock image that reminds her of the horse petroglyphs found in the Chauvet Cave in France. "I know my eyes are projecting [the image]," she says wistfully, "but something is also there to project…."

May inherited a very good eye for art. Her father was Gordon Nicholson Cope, a major artist of the Great Depression, whose impressionist oil paintings now sell on Sotheby's. She says he continued painting until six months before his death at 93. He painted "essence and light" she says of her father's work, and though she readily admits she "can't draw worth a hoot" she believes she inherited her father's eye for light and composition. "The rock in Republic opened a new perspective for me. With photography, it's all about light, but there's no light in the rock. It's what my eye sees…."

Today, May divides her time between Republic and Spokane, Washington, three hours away. She is enjoying Spokane and what it has to offer: museums, art supply stores, frame shops, and more opportunities to explore and exhibit her art. Her sojourn in Spokane has already opened new avenues of expression for her, including an October showing of her work at the Met Art Gallery. In addition to her Eocene series of cards and framed canvases, May has produced a new series of geologic-based art that she calls the Mandala.

Purchase Information

May's framed images and line of greeting cards are on display at Gold Mountains Art Gallery in Republic, Washington. Contact May via email to purchase prints.

Contact Information

Elizabeth May
may62 @ hotmail.com

Acknowledgements

Ferrycounty.com wishes to thank Elizabeth May for providing us with photos of herself and her art. Article by Sarah Lawrence, published on December 14, 2003. Article updated to include new gallery information on June 19, 2005.

Readers: Ferrycounty.com welcomes your comments. Please email us at editor@ferrycounty.com. See more artist interviews on our Arts and Culture page.

Copyright 2003 - 2008 Ferrycounty.com. All rights reserved.