Meet Maxine Schreiber | Artist/Writer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Maxine Schreiber and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Maxine, what inspires you?
I am inspired by my surroundings. I think that’s why I am primarily a landscape painter. The natural elements (sky, water, flora and fauna) as well as manmade structures (buildings, houses, bridges) appeal to me; in fact, I like nothing better than painting both nature and buildings in the same piece. I look around and see beauty everywhere, and I want to recreate it on canvas. However, I am also a political being and during the Trump administration I painted people for almost the first time. I went on many protest marches and found myself painting a series I called “This is What DEMOCRACY Looks Like.” I was still being a landscape painter but I was painting the political landscape and expressing a part of me that is an activist. I am pleased that the series showed in Clay, Glass, Metal, Stone Gallery in Lake Worth a couple of years ago, and I sold several works. Then more recently the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County included two paintings from the series in their 2021 Biennial Show, and three more were recently in the Boynton Beach Arts and Cultural Center.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
In addition to being an artist, I am also an aspiring author. So far, my art career has been far more successful than my writing career. I have exhibited and sold many paintings but getting my fiction and non-fiction published has been daunting to say the least. However, early in my art career, I was hired as the West Palm Beach Fine Arts examiner for examiner.com which was an online newspaper. At the same time I was also a columnist for the Indian River Art News and BestofArtists.com. For years, I wrote several articles each week about the local art scene and ended up getting a very nice following. I was constantly attending art openings and events at galleries and museums like the Norton Museum, the Morikami, the Cornell and the Armory Art Center to name just a few, and like you, I was interviewing artists. As a result, several galleries approached me about showing my work with them. In that way, my writing not only helped me to make an impact on the community about “the fabulous art scene,” but it also increased my visibility as a painter. I haven’t written articles for a few years, instead I use my writing skills to do the press releases for the Artists of Palm Beach County, Inc. What I’m most proud of is a children’s picture book “The Story of Daphne the Duck,” which I wrote, illustrated, and self published in 2014. It’s still available on Amazon. I love it because it allowed me to combine my passion for both writing and painting.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I think Miami is an exciting city and I’ve enjoyed visiting South Beach particularly, but I am a Palm Beacher and love promoting all the things one can do in Palm Beach County. When I moved here from Cambridge, MA nearly forty years ago I loved the climate but felt like I was living in a cultural wasteland. That attitude has changed completely over the years and now I think West Palm Beach is the best little city in the world. West Palm offers the Norton Museum of Art which in recent years has undergone a multimillion dollar renovation. It’s a fabulous museum and it has a really good restaurant with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the garden. We also have the Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens, a great place to visit as is Clematis Street where you can dine at my favorite restaurant Pistache French Bistro by Centennial Park. There’s also The Square formerly City Place with lots of dining and shopping opportunities located across from the Convention Center and the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts. I’ve been an usher at the Kravis for the past five years and still get a thrill every time I’m in our beautiful theatre. Palm Beach is located just across the intracoastal where there’s the Society of Four Arts, the Flagler Museum, and Worth Avenue, not to mention the beach. And Palm Beach County offers lots of nature experiences as well in the Grassy Waters Preserve in North Palm Beach and the Wakodahatchee Wetlands and Green Cay Nature Center in Delray. Actually Delray also has the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens. Then there’s the Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach. I could go on and on; there is just so much to see and do in Palm Beach County!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would like to give a shout out to the art organizations I’ve been involved with in the past two decades. When I became involved in the art world, I joined Women In The Visual Arts (WITVA), a wonderful group of artists located primarily in Boca Raton and Delray Beach who do a great deal of charitable work. The group has given thousands of dollars in scholarships to graduate school art students as well as high school students. Through WITVA I began to exhibit my work, and not long after that I joined the National Association of Women Artists (NAWA) and the Artists of Palm Beach County, Inc. (APBC). I’ve been a board member for all three organizations. I know you’ve interviewed my good friend, Lupe Lawrence, a fabulous painter who was one of the first artists I met when I joined APBC. Networking with other artists has offered me support, assistance, mentoring, and I gained a good reputation. More recently, the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County has also been extremely helpful. During the height of the Covid 19 shutdown, I was fortunate to have received monies from the Cultural Council’s Artist Relief Fund.

Website: http://www.schreiberstudio.com

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sXOL_X65Rc

Other: https://witva.org/schreiber%2C-maxine https://artistsofpalmbeachcounty.org/project/maxine/ https://www.palmbeachculture.com/artist-directory/#all-artists/artist-profile/5f05ccee331a45001661f1d0/