About the book's creator

Elizabeth McKee is an artist whose training has been mainly related to calligraphy. She took her first calligraphy classes while teaching English in Japan so her earliest calligraphic sensibilities lie in Oriental calligraphy. She didn't discover Occidental calligraphy until her daughter was three years old, about eight years after Beth left Japan. Since then she has taken as many calligraphy classes as possible but she has also taken drawing and computer graphics classes. While living in Kenya she ran a marbling workshop for four years. The workshop produced a lot of beautiful things but never any money. She has since gained an enormous amount of respect for business people.

Beth was born in the United Nations Trusteeship Territory of New Guinea where her parents were Lutheran missionaries. She went to Iowa when she was three because her mother was sick. Her mother recovered but died four years later. Just before she turned ten her father took her and her two brothers back to New Guinea where they went to boarding school for the next seven years. She completed grades eight to eleven at St Peters Lutheran College, Indooroopilly, Queensland. Her family returned to Iowa in January, 1966 where Beth finished high school.

She then spent four years getting her BA in Comparative Religion and went off to teach English in Japan where she met her husband, Neill McKee who was traveling through, waiting for a contract to make documentary films on CUSO (Canadian Peace Corp) volunteers around the world. A year later he returned to Japan for a week on his way home from another film trip. They got engaged and then he left. They were married five months later in Zambia on another film trip.

After that they spent six months in Ottawa, Canada, before going to Malaysia with CUSO for two years. When they returned to Ottawa Beth was pregnant, they bought a house and raised two children, Derek and Ruth. Beth became a Canadian citizen and helped to found the Calligraphy Society of Ottawa of which she is an honorary life member. She hoped she would live in Ottawa for the rest of her life and be buried in her garden.

But fate intervened. From 1986-1987 Neill took a sabbatical to work on his Masters Degree in Tallahassee, Florida. They returned to Ottawa but three years later they moved to Bangladesh with UNICEF. They were there for over three years.

In 1994 they moved to Kenya for five and a half years where Beth ran a marbling studio in their garage and guest house.

In 1999 they moved to Uganda for a year. There Beth studied graphic design, worked on some books and design projects and started her large book An Assault of Angels.

In 2000 Neill joined the Center for Communications Programming at Johns Hopkins University. They moved to Pasadena, Maryland where Beth again thought they would put down roots. She worked on An Assault of Angels, took classes, joined various groups and put in another garden. She also developed major allergies to most foods and many of her art supplies.

In January 2004 Neill accepted a job in Moscow, Russia. There Beth worked on recovering from her allergies, studying Russian and making books. Her final effort was the creation of five copies of the book For Immediate Release.

Back in Maryland in the summer of 2007 Beth tended her beloved garden, visited friends and family and started working on her Poster Project.

In October 2008 Beth turned 60 and gave herself the challenge of creating 60 books by the time she turned 62. To follow along on this journey check out