Michael Maginnis serves as fine arts and science teacher at Antietam Academy, Education Programs Manager for the Washington County Arts Council, and Out and About photographer for Hagerstown magazine.

He earned a BFA in 2002 from Frostburg State University. Raised in Smithsburg, Michael purchased a home in 2003 in Hagerstown and has since worked to increase his involvement in community arts. He currently serves as part of the Washington County Teen Idol committee and has joined Authentic Community Theatre’s Summer Institute for the Arts as a prop and set designer. His work has been shown at the Washington County Arts Council gallery in Hagerstown. more...

Michael Maginnis serves as fine arts and science teacher at Antietam Academy, Education Programs Manager for the Washington County Arts Council, and Out and About photographer for Hagerstown magazine.

He earned a BFA in 2002 from Frostburg State University. Raised in Smithsburg, Michael purchased a home in 2003 in Hagerstown and has since worked to increase his involvement in community arts. He currently serves as part of the Washington County Teen Idol committee and has joined Authentic Community Theatre’s Summer Institute for the Arts as a prop and set designer. His work has been shown at the Washington County Arts Council gallery in Hagerstown.

Michael tends to be more interested in exploring new means of expression than in attaining high mastery of those already discovered. He claims life is such: presenting us with the possibility of so many different types of experience that to linger on a particular type for too long divests life of the richness of its variety. This may seem to be at odds with his sometimes exceptionally laborious and meticulous methods of creating: he once spent 30 hours cutting an entire poem of calligraphy letters from masking tape to make a huge stencil to spray paint the words of the poem onto canvas. However, Michael describes himself as happiest when observing and manifesting the extremes of human experience. His sketchbooks are filled with ideas for sculptures, paintings and theatre props, drawn out and then left for what he sees as the “right time and place” to realize them.

In his work with Hagerstown magazine, Michael handles assignments with camera and reporter’s notebook in hand. He therefore gets a taste of following in the journalistic footsteps of his father, Bob Maginnis, Opinion Page editor for the Herald-Mail newspaper. On a daily basis, however, Michael’s creative energy goes into managing the personalities of his students at Antietam Academy High School. The Academy is Washington County’s alternative placement for students removed from their home schools because of various behavioral and academic difficulties. Michael first began teaching at the Washington County Arts Council’s Doub’s Woods Art Camp in 2003 and found it a great “recharge” after a hard first school year. In 2005 Michael began managing the camp and has supervised many arts events in the community since. Michael experiences another recharge through his relationship with his wife, Stacy, a fine arts instructor at Smithsburg Middle School. They reside in Hagerstown with their two cats, Blaze and Ember. Michael’s hobbies include cooking, home improvement, working out at the gym, reading (especially philosophy) and collecting Web videos. ...less