Maria Paz’s Atelier: A Profile
By Tyler Childress
The afternoon sun beams harshly upon the sidewalk beyond the cool, shaded patio of the Art Studio Café in Lake Worth Beach. The lettering of the shop’s name is hand-painted, multicolored, and bright against the backdrop of the black awning, under which two women sit talking over espressos at a small, round table. Behind them, a painting of a naked man lying on his stomach rests upon an easel in the display window of the narrow storefront.
While the view of the bright signage and the nude painting certainly draw eyes to the store’s exterior, inside the studio there exists a world created through the brush strokes of struggle, sacrifice, and compassion by its owner, Maria Paz.
It is 2 p.m. and Maria Paz has just found time for breakfast.
“Sometimes I don’t even have time to shower or do my makeup,” says Paz, chuckling as she stirs the frothy café con leche she just brewed.
Paz says she started selling paintings five years ago at Evenings on the Avenue, a bi-monthly event taking place in downtown Lake Worth Beach where vendors would set up and musicians would play live concerts.
“The landlady for my first store found me selling art [at Evenings on the Avenue] and hired me on the spot,” says Paz, whose work earned her further commissions such as painting the horse statue that sits atop McClelland’s Saddlery on North Dixie Highway.
She sits for a moment and picks over her breakfast while sorting through pictures of her previous work before she’s up again, darting barefoot across the paint-spattered wooden floor to greet a customer whose new haircut she comments on before asking if he wants the usual.
This is a normal day for Paz, who, as a working artist, barista, painting instructor, and entrepreneur has much less free time than when she was an artist selling her paintings on the street years ago. The studio has moved twice from other locations in Lake Worth, but For Paz, no matter where it is, the studio represents far more than a business where she sells coffee and paintings.
“This is like my house,” says Paz, who drew inspiration for the café from French ateliers, studios wherein artists would gather, drink coffee, and paint together.
Now, Paz has her own atelier, wherein the ceiling appears held up by canvases of all sizes and colors that leave the white walls all but invisible.
“There are days where it’s like, ‘pinch me, is this real? Am I really an artist?’” says Paz.
For Paz, 56, being a working artist with her own studio is a dream come true, the seeds of which were planted when she was a child in her home country of the Philippines where her family operated shoe manufacturing plants.
“Everybody’s really creative in family,” Paz says, but that her father was especially supportive of her creative endeavors.
“My father had me in the basement painting,” says Paz mirthfully, adding that when the family moved to Boston, he helped enroll her in art classes.
Despite this encouragement and instruction, Paz says that it took a long time before she became confident in herself as an artist. To make a living, she eventually got a corporate job in the garment district of New York City. Paz says that she found the work uninspiring and did very little painting during this time. It wouldn’t be until years later when she moved to Florida that she would find inspiration in the midst of tragedy.
“When you have a near-death experience, you think, ‘what do I really want to do?’” says Paz, who explains that getting hit by a truck was the turning point for her life as an artist. While nursing a broken leg from the incident, Paz found some of her old oil paint tubes and added turpentine to them to loosen them up. She has been painting again ever since.
Paz says that the accident is what began her life as a working artist, from selling paintings on the street to being commissioned to paint everything from canvases and murals to bicycles and surfboards. Her favorite subject to paint, she says, are scenes of nude beaches.
“I just think they’re funny,” says Paz, adding that people are, “so relaxed and at home on the beach.”
Paz’s passion for painting has drawn in students both local and from out-of-state to take lessons at her studio. Some students have been attending Paz’s classes regularly for years, following her from past spaces to the current studio.
“I hadn’t painted in 30 years before taking a class with Maria five years ago,” says Nancy Schwab as she squints at the yellow cottage on the canvas in front of her before adding brushstrokes of light blue to the sky above it.
Schwab comes to Lake Worth from Rochester, N.Y. from January to March every year. During this time, she goes to Art Studio Café three times a week.
“I can feel like it’s just me,” she says, explaining that the studio is where she comes to center herself, and that Maria Paz has helped her grow more confident in her painting.
“She’s really mentored me and encouraged me,” says Schwab, adding that, “She takes time for everybody and is very good to the world.”
The compassion that Maria Paz gives to her students extends to her staff as well. Employees like Damian Siguina, 18, who skateboards every day to work, says that being in the studio is much more to him than just a job.
“The first day I started working at the studio it was like getting a job at Disney, it’s such a wholesome place just to be at,” says Siguina, adding that walking into the studio is a new experience every day because he never knows what new art he’ll see.
Siguina has been working at the studio for nearly a year, and, like Paz, says that he sees it as his second home. Siguina also describes Paz as “the best boss that [he’s] ever worked for.”
Maria Paz’s dedication to her craft and her studio has made the Art Studio Café a popular meeting place for artists in the Lake Worth community. She says that having a studio that is completely her own has allowed her more freedom for herself and her creativity.
“I am just myself,” says Paz, “and all of this is really just an extension of me.”
