Two CCAD grads accepted into prestigious Skowhegan residency

Congrats to Cameron Granger (Cinematic Arts, 2016) and Pallavi Sen (Fine Arts, 2011), whose outstanding artmaking has been recognized by Skowhegan, an intensive nine-week summer residency program for emerging visual artists.

Located on a historic, 350-acre farm in rural Maine and established in 1946, Skowhegan draws a select group of individuals for intensive artistic creation, interaction with fellow artists, and growth in their respective practices.

Participants are encouraged to work “free of the expectations of the marketplace and academia,” according to the organization, and while on campus, are provided individual studio spaces, as well as access to a sculpture studio, a fresco studio, a media lab, a library, and abundant natural environs in the form of farmland, forests, and a lake.

“Alumni often report that the intensity of the Skowhegan experience has had a profound effect on their work and their lives,” according to the organization.

More than 2,000 artists from around the globe apply for Skowhegan, and after an “intensive” jurying process, their numbers are whittled down to 65, said Carmen Winant, Assistant Professor of Visual Studies and Contemporary Art History at CCAD.

Skowhegan “can change an artist's life forever,” she said. The impact is felt in “the ways in which their work grows and changes in that intensive environment, the network of artists they come to know, love, respect, and learn from.”

Winant herself was a Skowhegan residency artist in 2010 and served as dean there from 2013 to 2015. She maintains a role at Skowhegan as a jury member.

“I often ask myself as I am looking at early applications: does this look like anything I have ever seen before? Does this have a point of view, politically or otherwise? (Skowhegan has never shied away for politically minded work.) Does this person appear to be taking risks? Has this person developed a consistent and meaningful way of producing work? There is no one formula; the residency seeks out artists who seem to be driving themselves forward in exciting new ways,” Winant said.

The residency “impacted every part of my life,” she said. “It changed the way I made work — I went in as a photorealist drawer, and left a messy collage artist — as well as the community of artists I now lean on. I also met my husband there; he was another resident artist.”

Granger’s recent artistic endeavors include the group exhibition BOOST MOBILE at the MINT Collective gallery space, which also included CCAD students Jake Mason-Macklin (Fine Arts, 2017) and Tyler Davis (Fine Arts, 2018).

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