Meet our 2025 Paul Mellon Distinguished Fellow, cultural theorist and author Catherine Liu. Skowhegan is a space for experimentation, inquiry, and the exchange of ideas. Each summer, we invite an individual who brings a perspective from outside the arts to be the Paul Mellon Distinguished Fellow. This year’s fellow Catherine Liu is the author of Virtue Hoarders: the Case Against the Professional Managerial Class and The American Idyll: Academic Anti-Elitism as Cultural Critique. Liu’s work addresses class politics, film history, critique of the meritocracy, and the history of identity politics, among other topics. Her forthcoming book Traumatized, due out with Verso Books in 2026, considers political message art as the highest form of kitsch. Liu offers a critical lens towards the political landscape, carving new pathways of understanding, challenging preconceptions, and opening the door for deeper dialogue around what “making” means in response to our present. Read more about our 2025 Summer Faculty at www.skowheganart.org/faculty-artists Image: Courtesy Catherine Liu #skowheganschoolofpaintingandsculpture (fb)

How can we slow the ways in which we share information? How can we communicate with creativity and care? At Skowhegan, the summer is mapped through the language of signs. They inform, share, joke, and welcome. They announce Faculty Lectures, celebrate birthdays, organize workshops, and activate gatherings. Participants create with what’s at hand. Crafted in wood and cardboard, paint and plants, print and plastic, material moments are made with a spirit of openness and experimentation. They are collaborative acts in making and seeing. “Have you seen this rock?” is not metaphorical. Walking the same path, day by day, brings an intimate awareness of the landscape and its subtle shifts. If a rock inexplicably disappears from the side of the road, its absence matters. Through Skowhegan, what signs emerged? What did you notice that you had not noticed before? Images: Poster by Noelle Choy, Adrian Gonzalez, and Pallavi Sen for Reading Group led by Suzanne McClelland (2022), Skowhegan Bird Club poster by Ash Ferlito (2021), Theaster Gates Faculty Lecture sign (2015), "Have you seen this rock?" by Bridget Mullen (2016), Welcome sign by Pallavi Sen (2022) #skowheganschoolofpaintingandsculpture (fb)