Site

When we are on campus, our bodies are porous in the vast natural landscape, fully absorbing the particular conditions of a given day.

Whether it’s hot afternoons or cold, rainy nights, the elements permeate every aspect of what is happening. Being at Skowhegan attunes our bodies to the atmosphere around us, and when I think of the place, I conjure many visceral memories, even after many years. During Kate Valk’s lecture in 2013, a massive electrical storm swept across campus, knocking out power. She continued, illuminated by scores of tiny phone screens, the fourth wall metaphorically and physically broken, the room taut with concentration. Being led by on a moonwalk and feeling my eyes adjust to the dark of night. The unrelenting rays of sun across the cow fields. Thick mist rising up from the lake, leaving everything damp in the morning. An impromptu meeting held underneath enormous boughs and the watchful eye of two great horned owls.

At Skowhegan, the place is part of the pedagogy, the site a collaborator in the work. For founding artist Bill Cummings, the decision to transform his family farm into a school was integral to its conception, and its rural setting framed the early curriculum, including life drawing by the lake, plein air painting, and stone sculpting. Students seized the opportunity to work directly in the landscape, an embrace that continues today.

There’s a saying in Maine, “if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.” And while this has always been true, the dramatic and extreme swings of the past decade have revealed new ferocity in an era of climate change. What then, is Skowhegan’s responsibility to its site at this moment? If we want our School to work for artists in the future, how do we respond today to Maine’s rising number of extreme heat days or its fierce and fast moving storms? What steps are required to steward 350-acres and 90+ buildings so that they are sustainable and resilient, and how can we work with our neighbors to protect and conserve this special region? In what ways do we need to reorient decision-making so that environmental considerations are at the forefront of our process? These questions are at the heart of our work today, and the answers are interdependent, iterative and ongoing.

Food

Rosa Rosario is our head chef and director of residential life. Her approach centers on local, nutritious and uncomplicated food; thoughtful, intentional hospitality; and the belief that shared meals and shared spaces are essential to building a vibrant artistic community. Through her leadership, Skowhegan has grown its network of farmers, purveyors, and producers, locally sourcing nearly everything we eat and more closely aligning the experience in the dining hall to the values of our School.

Water

Lake Wesserunsett is our school’s northern boundary line, and its 1,400 acres of water are a link to our neighbors and an extension of campus as a space for nature, art and leisure. In the past five years we have partnered with the Lake Association and Somerset Woods Trustees (a non-profit land trust) on two significant preservation initiatives to protect this precious resource: the 50-acre Reid-Lahti Wetlands Preserve on the north side of the lake, and the 130-acre Black Point with its remarkable 3,800 feet of shoreline. These permanently protected woods and wetlands provide wildlife and waterfowl habitat, outdoor recreation and water access, and critical protection to slow and filter stormwater runoff before it enters the lake. It is a vital, interconnected ecosystem and one of the most beloved ways we connect to nature at Skowhegan.

Garden

Working with Frank Moore’s family and friends, Skowhegan governor Jane Hammond helped us create a studio named for her good friend who was an alum from 1973 and returned as faculty in 1998. Frank died of AIDS in 2002. He was an ardent environmentalist with a prescient sense for the interconnectedness of ecology and global health, and his paintings are inhabited by all manner of bugs, insects and fauna. Today, a pollinator garden, imagined by Jane and influenced by author, entomologist and ecologist Doug Tallamy, blooms in front of the studio.

Site

The Frankenthaler Climate Initiative, a project of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, is the leading private grantmaker supporting energy efficiency and sustainability in the visual arts. Last year they helped us undertake a planning project to analyze our buildings and grounds through the lens of energy use and identify site vulnerabilities related to climate change. We are already working on the resulting Sustainability Action Plan to help guide facilities management and point towards sustainable and energy-efficient maintenance and infrastructure solutions, while maintaining the rural character of campus.

Structure

As practices evolve, so too does our campus. In 2024, we inaugurated the Flex Space, an open barn with a sprung floor, modular lighting and sound equipment, and a large open porch. Designed by OPAL Architects, a sustainability-focused firm in Belfast, ME, the Flex Space is the first building on campus created out of CLT, a carbon-neutral material. In 2026, we created a natural amphitheater in the woods behind the upper field, constructed on site, from the site, with felled trees as benches and portable, wireless equipment available for production and creative use.

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How do we steward our site? These are some answers; projects, plans and explorations that we have undertaken so that our campus and operations are attuned to the principles of the program and its environment, and will function successfully for artists in the future. The work is ongoing and often most successful when undertaken collaboratively and rooted in local conditions and knowledge. Projects like these function as a connective thread behind the scenes, strategies guided by a long view of Skowhegan. They reflect our hope that our choices provide a resilient, sustainable, and deeply inspiring set of conditions for artmaking, while retaining the distinctive simplicity and humble nature of this former family farm.