Oral History
Text, Audio
2013
Janet Fish, Oral History
Skowhegan Oral History Project
The collection of Oral Histories began as a project in 2011 with oral historian Liza Zapol to create a consistent group of testimonies and memories from different people that shaped the school over the years.
“When I began this project, knowing I would be working with visual artists I formulated my questions visually and sensorially: If you were to make a drawing of an image from your summer in 1957, what would it look like? What is the perspective? What objects and spaces do you remember?
My questions, now that I know Skowhegan through grounded theory, are more dynamic in relation to the narrator’s whole life and understanding, ultimately engaging in how they make meaning. What results is a collection of narratives which evoke images and relationships that are integral to art history, society, and visual culture. And it is resoundingly specific—through this collection of oral histories, we hear a polyvocal Skowhegan.” Liza Zapol
A selection of Oral Histories are accessible in The Library. Additional interviews are accessible upon request at archive@skowheganart.org. Participants include: Sigmund Abeles, Emma Amos, Mildred Brinn, Ashley Bryan, Warren Cook, Daphne Cummings, Lois Dodd, Rackstraw Downes, David Driskell, Janet Fish, Richard Haas, Sidney Hurtwitz, Yvonne Jacquette, Penelope Jencks, Alex Katz, William King, Joyce Kozloff, Barbara Lapcek, Brice Marden, Alexander Milliken, Heidi Nitze, Muriel Palmer, Howardena Pindell, David Reed, Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, Abigail Shahn, Robert Storr, Barbara Sussman
Abstract
Janet Fish participates in an oral history with Liza Zapol. Fish attended Smith College for her undergraduate studies and then went to Skowhegan in the summer of 1961 in between her time as a graduate student at the Yale School of Art. Fish remembers that Skowhegan was a lot rougher then compared to now, but it worked out alright and it was not an unusual environment for Fish because she liked the roughness and also liked that it wasn’t a proper, traditional school but instead a place for working artists who wandered around and talked about what they were working on. Fish believes that the faculty were coming at it from a working artist perspective rather then a teacher’s perspective. Fish states that they were always getting critiques on the work they made and that it all worked out really well. Fish liked her cohort, especially the people from California who came with different art ideas compared to the people from the east coast. Fish then shares her memories of Bill Cummings who was always very kind and remembers his house where he made his own floor polish out of shoe wax, because he was from an old New England family. Fish reminisces that Bill Cummings was friendly to her because some of her family was also originally from New England as well. Fish says that Alex Katz taught her how to relax and immerse herself into painting the landscape which was very helpful advice. Katz liked the idea that Skowhegan was not a real school, but instead it was about being around working artists and being influenced by that, and not being instructed to paint in a certain way. Fish ends her oral history by saying that she wishes Skowhegan would stop being so clean and so school like, and that it goes back to bringing people in who are normally not teachers, because they have a different approach to art making versus the people who are not on university faculties. Fish believes that what makes a good teacher is people who are very actively involved in their own work.
People
Janet Fish