Barbara Maxwell - Artist

If you are at Renningers at Mount Dora, among the many stand holders you will find fine artist Barbara Maxwell, shown here in her shop with several works of art by her hand. Isn't the painting of her dog delightful! The other painting is of "the rock bound coast of Maine" - Rockport Harbor to be precise. Barbara is a very talented artist whose career has included creating illustrations for Highlights magazine. If you are a baby boomer it is likely that you enjoyed Barbara's illustrations, the ones where 25 things are hidden in the drawing and you are invited to try to find them all. Our family general practitioner was a Highlights subscriber and I have good memories of hunting for ordinary objects hidden in the foliage of trees, or tree bark, or porch posts, or clouds. Maybe you do too and if so, you have Barbara to thank.

Barbara lived for a time in New York City, during the heady "American School" years and recalls one impromptu party she and another artist friend were invited to... Their studio was in the same building as another group of artists, who had just set up a gallery display. Those artists being Andy Warhol and friends, I am assuming this was the famous exhibit at The Loft Gallery. If so, she would have met my uncle Allan Hugh Clarke at that impromptu party, as his work was also in the show.

Judy and I happened to meet Barbara not long ago, when we were out looking for of all things some rather hard to find hardware and decided to try the great shop at Renningers that has all kinds of vintage hardware. Of course, we love poking around in antiques malls (I grew up going to the other Renningers in Pennsylvania) and when we came to Barbara's shop, I went in to admire a painting and ended up in a conversation that led to finding out about Barbara's Manhattan days and the likelihood of the connection from way back then. I like it when these "small world after all" serendipitous moments happen. Don't you?

Barbara's husband Robert is also an acclaimed artist. Barbara has served as a court artist (in medieval times that would have meant painting for kings and queens). Today, it means painting the scenes in a courtroom, catching the mood of the trial at key moments, and so forth. The most infamous subject she had to delineate was serial murderer Ted Bundy, whom she described to interviewers as handsome at first glance but frightening when studied by an artist's keen eye. Several fine articles about Barbara may be found on line. When you are at Renningers, be sure to stop in and see Barbara and admire her paintings.