- April 19, 2024
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Since retiring from Flagler Schools a little over a year ago, Stewart Maxcy has been focusing on his art. While painting has always been a form of relaxation and therapy for him — working a long day, and then painting late at night — in retirement, Maxcy has changed his outlook on painting from hobbyist to professional.
Last month, he was one of six artists to join Ocean Books & Art, in Flagler Beach. The venture with the gallery is his first professional showing of his work.
“I used to do strictly landscapes; growing up in Florida, I really liked the marshes and waterways,” Maxcy said while sitting on the porch in his Flagler Beach home. “When I went into Ocean Gallery, at the beach, they have people that are already doing that.”
But, on a whim, Maxcy brought a couple of sea turtle paintings along with him too. He had recently started painting the turtles.
“It was turtle season, and I found it very strange that nobody was painting turtles,” Maxcy said.
Gallery owner Frank Gromling loved the turtles and asked Maxcy to paint more. Now, his colorful acrylic paintings of sea turtles and manatees round out his display at the gallery.
As a young artist, Maxcy was a cartoonist and then worked with silkscreen, most of his work filled with a realistic, humorous flare. His paintings were the same way before he switched to landscapes. Now that he is painting ocean animals, he spends more time on details, shadowing and thinking about how light hits things through the water. His paintings have become much more realistic and truer to detail.
“It’s an ongoing process,” he said. “I’m always learning new tricks — sometimes by accident. I would like to think that my artwork is improving with each painting.”
Maxcy’s colorful sea life got some attention from Heather Chalmers and Marybeth Jeitner, who are in the process of writing a children’s book about Libbie the Lobster, a rare yellow lobster rescued from the lobster tank at the Flagler Beach Publix.
“Not only is Stewart Maxcy a great artist and an illustrator, who has illustrated many children’s books, but he is also a kind, gentle man who loves his work,” wrote Jeitner on the Libbie the Rare Yellow Lobster Facebook page.
Having worked in education for 37 years as an art teacher, elementary school principal, and district administrator, Maxcy was glad to sign on as the book’s illustrator.
“My career in Flagler County was awesome,” Maxcy said, adding that it was fulfilling to touch so many lives in his work at the schools. “I’m hoping that I can do the same with my artwork; that it brings enjoyment to people. I like my art to be relaxing and peaceful, so I’m hoping my paintings can do the same thing that I feel my career did.”
But his career isn’t over. Maxcy is also spending his time giving private art lessons to children and will begin teaching acrylic painting classes as well as workshops at Ocean Books & Art. He will also be the featured artist at the gallery in October, with an opening reception Friday, Oct. 3.
“When I was working, I was an underground artist,” Maxcy said. “And now, after a year of retirement, I feel like I am swapping careers.”
