Welcome to The Maxwell Edit
More than a journal, this is a tribute to where I come from and why I create.
Welcome to The Maxwell Edit.
A creative journal born from memory, and a deep reverence for the past. This is a space to unpack what lingers, and to metabolize feeling through form. From quiet personal reflections to essays on artists of the past, everything here is rooted in one central pursuit: to understand the why behind the what.
Sometimes it’s a reflection on something I’m going through, other times it’s a deep dive into an artist who changed the way I see things. There’s no formula here, no niche I’m trying to stick to, just the things that feel meaningful in the moment... and more often than not, those things are shaping me creatively, emotionally, and personally.
The name Maxwell carries deep personal meaning. It’s more than a creative identity; it’s a piece of my family’s legacy. In 1940, my great-great-uncle Fred Maxwell founded Maxwell Galleries in San Francisco, and for decades it served as a cornerstone of California’s art world. What began as his dream became a family endeavor, later run by my grandparents, my mother, and my aunts.
Some of my earliest memories take place inside that gallery, where I’d wander wide-eyed through rooms filled with paintings, letting my imagination take me somewhere else entirely. Even then, I understood the magic of it: how a single image could transport you.
But art didn’t just live on the walls; it showed up in every corner of my life. As a shy child, I struggled to find my voice in conversation, but discovered I could express myself through art. Whether I was dancing, filming home videos, or dreaming up make-believe worlds in my backyard, I felt most like myself when I was creating. Music, performance, photography, painting; each medium gave me a new language, a way to step outside myself and into something braver. Art became my escape, my safe place; a world I could shape and make sense of, even when everything else felt uncertain.
It was where I learned that creativity isn’t just expression, it’s survival.
This space, in many ways, is an extension of that. A continuation of a family tradition reimagined for the present. It’s my living archive. A place to document what’s moving me, and to hold space for the ideas and emotions that don’t always have a clear outcome or endpoint. Whether it’s a relic from my own life or a nod to someone else’s genius, everything I share here has some personal thread running through it. That’s how I create, by starting from feeling.
The Maxwell Edit is the most honest version of what’s going on behind the scenes; the unfiltered part, the in-between. I hope that if you find yourself here, you leave feeling a little more connected. To my work, to your own creativity, or maybe just to the reminder that there’s meaning in the mess.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you. I’m so glad you’re here. I hope you leave feeling a little more inspired.
x, s.