|
 |
One evening in 1990 while driving home from work, I came up with an idea. As an art lover, I had seen so many lovely paintings that depicted one intriguing subject: a woman reading. As an avid reader, I had often read what other women had written about their own love of reading. What, I thought, if I combined the images and the words ? The idea excited me and I gathered more than one hundred fine art images and I discovered the expressive words of famous women on their passion for books. I wrote a proposal and a prototype for a gift journal graced with quotations and art. I called it The Reading Woman, and I licensed the concept to Pomegranate, one of the largest publishers of fine art calendars, books and journals in North America.
Today, The Reading Woman has become its own phenomenon. Sold in English-speaking countries around the globe, The Reading Woman is now a family of several delightful gift products geared to the book-loving woman. The line includes not only the journal but a wall calendar, engagement diary, postcard book and boxed note cards. Each year The Reading Woman images and words are changed but they’re always exquisite. Like my other gift products, The Reading Woman has been and remains a labor of love.
In 1994, I created the vibrant art-filled journal: Enchanted Islands: Voices and Visions from the Caribbean. Also published by Pomegranate, this journal arose from my ongoing love affair with Caribbean art. As the former art columnist and feature writer for the magazine Caribbean Travel & Life, I had the opportunity to meet with the region’s most exciting artists and writers. I put the ones I loved most in this book. Enchanted Islands is the ideal gift for anyone who loves art, beautiful words and of course… a white sand beach.
In 2003, I dreamed of another gift journal. This one, Solo Passages is composed of excerpts of women’s most private diary entries and enhanced by art showing women writing. To create this journal, I read hundred of diaries from both little-known and famous women. I discovered that at heart, women around the globe, whether rich or poor, experience much the same insecurities, longings and joys. In Solo Passages we glimpse the private thoughts of an eclectic collection of women including Beatrix Potter, Virginia Woolf, Eleanor Roosevelt and Anaïs Nin. I’ve filled this journal with the art I’m personally most passionate about with works by Mary Cassat, John Singer Sargent, Frida Kahlo as well as wonderful new artists.
Solo Passages is packaged in a jewel-case box and comes with a CD of classical music solos for cello, harpsichord and piano performed by Sharon O’ Connor, founder of the San Francisco String Quartet.
To buy Maxine's gift items at Amazon.com, please click on the Title or Picture.
 |
Enchanted Islands : Voices & Visions from the Caribbean
ISBN 0-87654-076-0
The Enchanted Islands journal beautifully combines art, prose, and poetry from the Caribbean. It showcases works by a variety of Caribbean artists, from renowned painters to lesser-known but equally brilliant contemporary artists, all accompanied by literary excerpts of the likes of Nobel Prize winner, Derek Walcott. This exuberant combination of island voices and visions creates a soulful tapestry of Caribbean life -- and inspiration for your own experiences.
Buy this item at Amazon.com | Back to Top
|
  |
The Reading Woman : A Journal
ISBN 0-87654-816-8
This exquisite volume with full-color reproductions of paintings of women reading, will provide inspiration for recording your private thoughts or keeping track of the books you've read. Art included is by Mary Cassatt, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edouard Manet, Edward Hopper, James McNeill Whistler, and Winslow Homer, as well as contemporary selections. Quotes from well-known women on their love of books and reading appear throughout. After ten years, this lovely journal is still a best seller and the perfect bookworm or reading-group gift.
Buy this item at Amazon.com | Back to Top
|
 |
The Reading Woman Boxed Note Cards
ISBN: 0-7649-2601-2
20 greeting cards. Twenty assorted full-color 5 x 7" note cards with envelopes in a decorative box. All cards are blank inside. Each of the beautiful paintings included in this folio of note cards portrays the reading woman in her enjoyment of the printed page.
Buy this item at Pomegranate.com | Back to Top
|
 |
The Reading Woman Book of Postcards
ISBN: 0-7649-1267-4
The images in this enchanting book of postcards capture the tranquil sanctuary and sublime beauty of women immersed in the pages of a book. The book of postcards contain thirty top-quality reproductions bound together in a handy collection. Easy to remove and produced on heavy card stock, these gorgeous postcards are a delight to the sender and receiver (and the letter carrier too). Size: 4 3/4 x 6 7/8"
Buy this item at Pomegranate.com | Back to Top
|
|
The
Reading Woman 2007 Calendar
ISBN: 0-7649-3568-2
A book can stop time, transcend circumstances, conjure a world in which to lose oneself. This calendar’s twelve paintings--including Edgar Degas’ Visit to a Museum, Laura Coombs Hills’ Fire Opal (Grace Mutell), John Singer Sargent’s Simplon Pass: Reading, and nine other serene and lovely images--achieve the same thing. Just as the reading woman has temporarily set herself free from her life’s narrative, so can we leave ours as we contemplate her image. Well-chosen words on the pleasures of literature, from historic and contemporary readers and writers, accompany each image.
Published with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Size: 12 x 13 in.; opens to 12 x 26 in.
Buy this item at Pomegranate. | Back to Top
Also shown is the 2008 Calendar, available in the Pomegranate Catalog.
ISBN: 978-0-7649-3864-1
|
|
2007 The Reading Woman Engagement Calendar
ISBN: 0-7649-3564-X
Whether finding escape in a novel or engulfed in a scholarly treatise, the reading woman has long fascinated artists. Spanning time and place from eighteenth-century Japan to twentieth-century America, this calendar features thirty-two sumptuous images--by Cassatt, Degas, Fragonard, Hassam, Rembrandt, Sargent, Toshihide, Whistler, and twenty-four other masters--of women engaged by the written word. Quotes on the subject of reading accompany the images.
112 matte-coated pages with 32 full-color reproductions of artworks by European, Asian, and North American masters, including Cassatt, Rembrandt, Toshihide, and others, and 32 inspirational quotes from famous women on the subject of reading. 6 5/8 inches wide and 8 inches tall, hardcover with a Wire-O binding. This weekly engagement calendar includes 54 weekly grids, 12 full-page monthly grids, and double-page spreads of 2007 and 2008 yearly grids. The weekly pages are a light, muted green with faint rule lines. Includes international holidays, calling codes and time differences, and pages for notes and personal information.
Also shown is the 2008 Engagement Calendar, available in the Pomegranate Catalog.
ISBN: 978-0-7649-3863-4
Also found at Pomegranate. | Back to Top
|
 |
Solo Passages
Woman’s Journal with Inspiring Diary Passages and Paintings
Peaceful Music for Solo Harpsichord, Piano, and Cello
This gorgeous illustrated journal by Maxine Rose Schur will inspire women to record thoughts, wishes, and dreams. Classical solos performed by Sharon O’Connor set the mood for reading, writing, and contemplation. A perfect gift for mothers, daughters, or best-friends.
Back to Top |
|
|
