Jeanne May is a retired teacher from New Jersey, now an oil painter based in North Carolina. Drawing has always been a passion for Jeanne from a young age. At 10 years old, Jeanne went for art lessons on Saturday mornings held in the upstairs loft of a local fruit farm. Her instructor was named Cricket and Cricket was an oil painter. Jeanne spent a year with Cricket painting still lifes and landscapes in oil. Her next instructor was Mrs. Jacobson, a pastel portrait artist, who Jeanne studied with after school once a week during her middle school years. This is where Jeanne gained her love for portraiture. She spent the next 3 years with Mrs. Jacobson learning the art of pastel portrait work. Then began the long hiatus. Life pulled Jeanne in many directions and the study of art fell to the wayside, although she continued to draw. Jump ahead to 2015, Jeanne wanted to paint a portrait of a good friend's daughter for his 50th birthday. Not having picked up a paintbrush or a pastel in over 30 years, Jeanne signed up for a portrait class at her local contemporary art center with instructor Oscar Peterson. During this time, she created 4 pastel portraits. Then her husband of 15 years, JP, was diagnosed with cancer, and everything stopped. JP died in 2018. Four years later, in the summer of 2022, after her youngest child graduated high school, Jeanne retired from teaching and moved the Crystal Coast of North Carolina. One year later she began painting in acrylics and 6 months after that picked up oils again, the first time in 46 years. The smell of the oil paint brought her right back to the fruit farm and Cricket's art class and Jeanne felt like she was home again. Now barely a day goes by where Jeanne does not paint. She is a member of her local arts council, the Arts Council of Carteret County, and shows work locally, regionally and nationally. Jeanne has taken workshops with North Carolina texture artist Liz Morton and in November 2024 she traveled to Portugal to attend a workshop with internationally acclaimed portrait artist Tania Rivilis. Jeanne hopes that this chapter in her life will lead her to new places, experiencing life through her artwork and the people she may meet along the way.