Update to 2020 Summer Session

Written By Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture

Letter From Sarah Workneh, Skowhegan Co-Director


First and foremost, I hope that you and your loved ones are well. I am writing today with concern, care, and an offering of hope and fortitude in this extreme moment and to let you know that we have made the decision to cancel the 2020 summer program at Skowhegan. Moving forward, we will instead consider your application for the summer of 2021.

We have made this decision due to the uncertainty set forth by the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a great deal of thought and discussion, we believe this decision is the most prudent in protecting our staff and faculty, our community in Maine, and of course, you – and the financial, personal, and emotional investments you make in preparing to attend residencies. Furthermore, Skowhegan has always been a place where artists from around the world gather, and in running through various scenarios of how we might run the program this year, it was clear that the fundamental character and energy of exchange, and our values as an organization and as a school would be deeply compromised with any limitations placed on who might be able to attend.

With this in mind, we will continue to consider you and your fellow current applicants, to select a class of 65 participants with a robust waitlist for the summer of 2021.

We started reviewing applications in January as the coronavirus first began to spread. We paused the process last week when we shuttered the office, and Skowhegan staff moved to remote work as the pandemic spread around the world. The Admissions process will remain on hold until it is safe to return so that we can review the applications you submitted with care and the rigor that we feel is necessary and deserved. It is hard to project a timeline, but my hope is that we will be able to finish and let everyone know in late fall or early winter of this year. Understanding that the world may be different by then, we will make the necessary accommodations as time requires and will keep you updated.

A couple of immediate important matters to understand and acknowledge: your application will be reviewed in full by our jury for admissions in 2021; and we will not have a new application for summer 2021 and no new applications will be considered. We cannot make changes, or add works to your already submitted application, and we cannot refund application fees, but you will have every chance to be admitted as in any other year. We have composed an FAQ to answer more logistical questions about the application review process which you can find on this page.

I think we all find ourselves in a moment that we could not have imagined, so I ask for your patience and understanding as all of us are dealing with personal, physical, professional, economic, and emotional strain in considering how we move forward. I know many of you have faced or are facing further precarity as this situation unfolds, and I, myself, and Skowhegan will work towards enacting the kind of community that has served as the bedrock of the work we do under more normalized circumstances, but this will take time.

In 74 years, this is only the second summer that Skowhegan has not operated, but in moments of extreme darkness, the school and all of its artists have found the fortitude to be better, to think more broadly, to push ourselves beyond what we know and what we can see in the immediate. This is and has been our job as artists in the past, in this present, and in the future.

This is a moment when care is needed. Skowhegan serves as a collection point to forge community, but in many ways, we need not wait to do it there. Find the community you need in this moment, find people that need community in this moment. In 2018, Resident Faculty member Simon Leung said something in his lecture that has stuck with me in thinking about the work we do on campus each summer. Referencing the Greek word askesis, Simon spoke of self-care as an endeavor of preparation…that what begins in ourselves is preparation for how we encounter the other – that the ethical is not so much what one does in a particular situation but rather how one prepares oneself to be. This could be said both about what we make and its life after our own hands but it certainly is also about how we live as artists who encounter the world and those around us – in this precarious time especially. There is a concept in Mayan culture that is similar in its intention—In La’kech, which translates roughly to “I am the other you.” Please keep this in your thoughts as we move through this and beyond.

With care and in safety,


Sarah Workneh
Co-Director

Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture
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