I have always been interested in the arts and have continually loved to make stuff to sell since I was a young girl.  Each and every bag that I make is one-of-a-kind. I have been working on my line for about 4 years now. I paint large paintings on canvas (approx. 4' x 4') and then the actual paintings are cut and sewn to make the bags. I have also started to feature the work of other emerging artists whose work I love. I'm now at a point where I will be using prints of the paintings in addition to the hand painted canvas, so I can expand my production.

The main ingredient of maxine orange handbags is hand-painted canvas. This is the one thing that makes them most special since each piece is cut from an original painting on canvas, hand painted by myself or one of my featured artists. Most of the bags from my original collection are composed completely of the painted canvas, and lined in satin. The more recent collections have taken a step up in quality using materials such as Italian leather and custom hardware. The target customer is a woman who loves art and likes to stand out from the crowd.  My line is very different from others in the way that we have to have a number of paintings completed to fill a run of production. This may take a while to get all the paintings ready to have enough to fulfill the yield for each bag style that I want to produce. In turn we may only produce one or two bag styles rather than a whole collection each season. This is one reason that we may be moving towards using prints in addition to the hand-painted canvas.

In my last year of college at The University of Alabama, I took my first sewing class. Full of inspiration, I found a painting that a friend in my painting class had that was off the stretchers and rolled up. He was preparing for his art show and this painting did not make the cut. I loved the painting, full of bright colors with patterns and designs filling the canvas. I asked him if I could cut up his painting so I could make a skirt - I would wear it to his show! He thought it sounded cool, so I began cutting right there on the floor of the painting studio, and there was a strip that I cut off the bottom that I folded up, and in my hands there it was... a bag to go with the skirt! Well, needless to say I went straight home and started sewing the bag with scrap pieces of denim and a satin lining with chunky contrast hand stitching and bead embellishments. I never made the skirt, but the bag was a big hit with all of my friends. I made a few more bags completely by hand before I learned more about the fashion industry and that I would have to have my bags produced professionally if I would really want to make this work.

One thing that is a bit of a nightmare for me is that many people who buy bags from me are afraid to use them since they are actual art pieces - they "don't want to mess them up" per se... HOWEVER, these bags are meant to be used and actually build character with age. I specifically prefer the way they look once they are worn in.

Well, I suppose one thing that always makes me happy is the fact that when I was asked "what do you want to be when you grow up?" my answer as a little girl was usually that I wanted to be an artist, and I do now have a multi-faceted career as an artist. Another thing that I love is that I have also provided a platform for other emerging artists to get their art out there into the real world.