Dan Earl "D.E." May (March 28, 1952 – February 27, 2019) was an American artist, known in Northwest art circles for his drawings and constructions using found materials that “suggests they are documents or tools left over from the [building] and planning of something larger” whose “purpose is now lost and can only be imagined.” ^{[1] [2]} His work is in the collections of numerous art museums, primarily in the Northwest.^[1]

Life

May was born in Salem, Oregon. He lived there his entire life, referring to it as “Island Salem.” In the 1970s, he studied art with Larry Stobie at the Oregon College of Education. He owned two art galleries in Salem and had solo exhibitions or was in group shows in seven states. ^[1]1

May was a finalist for the Portland Art Museum’s 2008 Contemporary Northwest Art Awards. He won a national Art Matters grant and was a Hallie Ford Fellow in the Visual Arts in 2013. ^[1]

His workroom was in downtown Salem, known as the “Regionaires Club,” and serving as a “half-secret social club.” He was a regular at a couple of Salem bars.^[1] (A book on May was entitled Dive Bar Architect.) ^[3]

Profiles of May noted his quirks. His workroom was dark, the windows covered with fiberboard, the room lit by desk lamps. (He described himself as nocturnal; a reporter of one profile was instructed not to call until after 1 p.m.) ^[4] His found materials - scraps of cardboard, old maps, old papers, old stamps - were stored in stacks of catalogued cardboard boxes. ^{[3] [4]}

May was described as “decidedly analog.” ^[2] He hadn't owned a car since 1977 and got his first phone, a landline, at the age of 47. ^[4]

Work

His materials included small pieces of cardboard, marked into grids, ^[3] and larger pages from ledger books and graph papers that have been remade to suggest diagrams, templates and floor plans. ^[2] He also made small box-like constructions, some the size of index cards,  from found materials recast into geometric designs. ^[3]

Reception

Richard Klein, curator of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, said that despite the “small scale” and “ephemeral character” of May’s works, “they offer an expansive experience.” ^[3]

In Artforum, writer Stephanie Snyder praised May’s work at one “electric” exhibition for its “passionate exploration of spatial forms, language and storied materials” such as “weathered cardboard.”^[5]

In Oregon Artswatch, writers Anna Gray and Ryan Wilson Paulsen noted “his meticulous abstractions hold a subtle magic. They appear as both documents of the past and proposals for a future architecture...”^[6]

In its biography for May to accompany its collection of his work, the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, said, “May's refined abstractions speak to his interest in storied materials that reflect time and place as well as to an artistic process that transforms the banal and forgotten into objects of contemplation.” ^[7] It quotes May: "I have always been drawn to the non archival. The work I do may not be here forever, but it will probably see us out.” ^[7]

References