New York New York 10011
United States
For nearly eight decades, Skowhegan has offered artists from around the world the opportunity to engage within an experimental framework based on the idea of sharing knowledge and skills among artists. During the nine-week program, 65 artists working across all disciplines live as a community of peers on our 350-acre campus in rural Maine. They participate in a collective learning process through a variety of skill-sharing and theoretical workshops, group and individual studio visits, performances, lectures, and reading groups.
Participants design the program's content in full collaboration with our faculty—a distinguished group of resident and visiting artists. We emphasize process, exchange, and rehearsal, deepening discourse around what "making" means to artists.
2026 faculty
Each year we welcome a new group of Resident Artists, Visiting Artists, and a Paul Mellon Distinguished Fellow as faculty, creating a flexible space for intergenerational dialogue. Resident Faculty Artists will be announced during the application cycle. Visiting Faculty Artists and the Paul Mellon Distinguished Fellow will be announced in the future.
Campus, expectations, and learning program
The program includes a series of experimental workshops, conversations, reading groups, and lectures that combine theory and practice, discourse and production; as well as weekly individual and group studio visits. Participants have time for their own studio practice, and decide how they want to engage within the program’s structure.
Participants are provided lodging, daily meals, as well as studios and workspaces. Our facilities comprise more than 80 buildings, including a library, different shops for fabrication (including metal, wood, ceramics), fresco shop, media lab, performance space, dining hall, community spaces, and dorms.
Our campus is surrounded by farmlands, forests, wetlands, and lakeshores. This landscape is integral to the pedagogical framework of the School, and invites us to honor and use the campus in an ethical and sustainable way.
Application process
Our application is based on work developed to date. We require ten images, or six minutes of videos/sound projects, and brief explanations of each to provide context. This year, we also ask for a brief video narrative describing your interests as an artist. Detailed video narrative instructions can be found within the application. We do not require applicants to apply with a specific project in mind; instead, we encourage participants to use their time at Skowhegan to experiment based on the experience of living and working together over the course of the nine-week program.
Eligibility
All artists are welcome to apply. Skowhegan is particularly interested in emerging artists—both US-based and international—with a professional art practice. Experimentation, intellectual curiosity, and the ability to collaborate and interact with peers are the main requirements.
If selected, it is not possible to defer participation (extraordinary circumstances may be considered on an individual basis). Selected artists are expected to be in residence at Skowhegan for the duration of the nine weeks; trips or other absences are not permitted.
*While we still keep the founding name “Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture,” we understand art in a multidisciplinary way, and welcome artists working in all disciplines.
Tuition and travel
We do not consider financial circumstances during application review. Our priority is that the School is accessible to any interested artist who is accepted. We have scholarship funds to distribute amongst applicants in need. International artists need to obtain their visas, and we provide a letter of acceptance upon request. We also provide help with travel expenses for international participants.
Applications will be accepted between September 1 and October 17, 2025 (11:59pm EST). Prospective participants will be notified in December if they have been selected for an interview. Final notifications will be in January.
For more information on how to apply, please visit here.
We recommend reading Skowhegan’s guidelines very carefully before applying. For further inquiries, please email: help@skowheganart.org.
*Images above: [1] Discussion group outside library. [2] Group studio visit, 2023. [3] Welding station. [4] Ballet class led by Gordon Hall in Fresco Barn, 2013.
