Maine’s towering role in American art owes, in part, to enclaves of artists gathering in out-of-the-way places. With the days of the rusticators long gone, how is the tradition holding up…
The first MacDowell-ish residencies took root in Maine mid-century and have since thrived. The Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, founded in 1946, is one of the country’s most esteemed, with more than 2,000 annual applicants vying for 65 private studios and cottage quarters on a former farm in Madison. Maine-dwelling artists introduced to the state via Skowhegan include Alex Katz and the late David Driskell, Robert Indiana, and Ashley Bryan. In 1950, a group of Maine craftspeople established Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, today on Deer Isle, which a recent PMA exhibit credited with nothing less than having “transformed art, craft, and design in the 20th century.” Artists come by the hundreds each summer for short residencies, workshops, and more.