Student Spotlight on Maggie Livezey
Solebury School Senior Heading to Brown University and RISD for Dual Degree Program
With high school graduation right around the corner, Solebury School senior Maggie Livezey is focused on her art and future as an incoming freshman in the highly selective dual-degree program at Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where she plans to major in international affairs and painting, respectively. She is one of several local high school seniors heading to art school in the fall whose work was featured in the Youth Art Exhibition at Phillips’ Mill.
Maggie is also putting the finishing touches on a mural at the school, a fitting way to leave her mark in a community that has meant so much to her. “It’s on a wall looking through a building where everyone passes (on the Solebury School campus). My inspiration was the first day of spring, when everyone gets happy that the weather is getting warmer,” she says.
“A lot of the time I am inspired by what is happening in my life at the moment—seeing something I find visually interesting, like the people in the nail salon (the subjects in her painting “In the Waiting Room of the New Hope Nail Salon,” which was featured in the 2024 Youth Art Exhibition at Phillips’ Mill). In the past, my work was more photorealistic. Now I am trying to abstract the images more,” she explains.
In addition to “In the Waiting Room of the New Hope Nail Salon,” the young artist has had two other works featured in the Phillips’ Mill Youth Art Exhibition: “Untitled,” which won 2nd place for Works on Paper in 2021, while Maggie was only in 9th grade, and “Empty Spaces” in 2023. It was her first artwork to be sold. She has since sold a few other paintings, including one at a Bucks County Community College art show, and received the Jim Hamilton Memorial Shad Festival Scholarship.
She is grateful to her art teachers for choosing her works to be submitted to the Phillips’ Mill show and the program at Solebury School for providing her with ample opportunities to explore her creativity.
“The experience of having her work in shows like Phillips’ Mill has been really important as she thought about her future path,” relays architect Moira McClintock, Maggie’s mother, who had encouraged Maggie to attend a summer program at RISD, just as she did as a youth.
“After I did the summer program at RISD, I thought, ‘This is really cool, this is what I am going to do,’” Maggie continued. “It became my goal from that point on.”
She enrolled in the dual program with Brown so that she can pursue multiple interests and passions. Maggie has also been interested in the human aspect of the arts and is equally intent on using her art to further social justice, which is why she is also going to be studying international affairs at Brown.
“I like how RISD has a very rigorous program, with a foundational program the first year.
There is a culture at RISD of putting everything into learning what art is. Of course I am also really looking forward to having the whole college experience. A new beginning is very cool. I hope it’s the best year of my life.”
