- April 25, 2024
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District officials honored (holding plaques, left to right) FPC alumni Shanna Fortier, Patrick Maxcy and Matt Katsolis. Photo by Colleen Michele Jones
FPC art teacher Ed Beckett introduces the panel of honorees.
Passion, hard work and getting over the fear of failure were common themes expressed by three alumni of Flagler Palm Coast High School invited to return to their alma mater March 28 and be honored as examples of successful professionals working in the arts world.
At the second-annual Art Works day, FPC graduates inducted into the high school's Arts Hall of Fame included Shanna Fortier, former associate editor for the Palm Coast Observer now working as a community editor at a newspaper in Colorado; Matt Katsolis, founder of Interpret Studios and an award-winning director and cinematographer; and Patrick Maxcy, a former arts teacher at FPC now pursuing a career as a painter.
Each of the honorees was given the chance to talk about his or her work and career and take questions from the audience of students, district and community representatives attending the event held at the Flagler Auditorium. In afternoon sessions, the artists led more intimate workshops with students.
For Fortier, a lifelong love of adventure and photography led her to a career as a photojournalist. Fortier earned a degree in visual communications from the University of Central Florida before taking a job as part of the founding team at the Observer in 2010. In her tenure with the paper, Fortier covered the schools, arts and community issues, winning multiple awards from the Florida Press Association. In her free time, she traveled with her church group and documented the lives of people in Guatemala. In 2015, Fortier left to take a job as community editor with a weekly newspaper in the Denver area, where she is working on several in-depth photo essays about everyday people facing struggles from homelessness to teen parenting.
"I think I became a journalist because I was curious," Fortier said, "but I think I stayed in journalism to give voice to the voiceless."
Katsolis, too, found his way to his current work through early passions, including his family's nurturing of the arts in their home, as well as a love of surfing. Katsolis said that while he knew he would never be a pro surfer, "I just started swimming with a camera instead."
Underwater photography and video has actually become a specialty of Katsolis, who ended up launching his own company called Interpret Studios, based in Jacksonville Beach, with the help of several friends and associates, among them one of last year's FPC Arts Hall of Fame inductees, fellow photographer A.J. Neste.
Katsolis' work takes him across the world for photo and film shoots for clients from Nike to Red Bull. The studio also produces short films, commercials, music videos and branded content.
Students may recall Maxcy, who was a familiar sight in the hallways of FPC until leaving an art teaching position to pursue painting full time. Maxcy, who holds degrees in fine arts from the Florida School of the Arts and Florida Atlantic University, concentrates on sea life and other creatures, as well as nature, in much of his work.
Like Katsolis, he travels extensively in his career, which often entails painting commissioned murals on the sides of buildings. Maxcy said that pushing through self-doubt and comparison with other artists — as well as having a sense of humor about things — has helped him in his pursuit of art. That, and keeping a daily sketchbook where he roughs out ideas for future projects.
