 Ealy Mays headed to Paris shortly after leaving the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1996.He followed in the footsteps of other African American artists, performers, and intellectuals such as Victor Séjour, Henry O. Tanner, Ira Aldridge, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Josephine Baker, and others who, since the mid-19th century, have chosen Paris and elsewhere in France and Europe for study or expatriate life.Mays believed that Paris could provide him a venue without ostracism or social stigma for his type of work.