Sarah Workneh, Co-director, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
David Driskell, United States (1931 - 2020), Pine and Moon, 1971, oil on masonite, 47 3/8 x 35 1/8 inches. Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine. Museum purchase with support from Friends of the Collection, 2011.4. Image courtesy Pillar Digital Imaging. Courtesy of the artist and DC Moore Gallery, New York.
“‘Respond to the inner urges of your spirit which is human, which is broader than any concept of race, broader than any concept of trying to be political… Listen to your own voice…. And Skowhegan can help you get there if you will listen, if you will listen to your own voice.’” – David Driskell
“David Driskell came to Maine in 1953 on a scholarship to Skowhegan. At Skowhegan, to which he maintained a lifelong affiliation as faculty artist and board member, David first felt seen as an artist, rather than limited by race. He went on to teach, to write, to curate, and to make artwork that often seemed caught between two passions sparked on campus—an urge to address the political, and the desire to “satisfy [his] soul” by depicting the beauty of the natural world. One might confuse painting pines as a respite from the structural and individual evils endemic to the segregated South and Civil-Rights-era America. But it is also possible that focusing on freedom, on joy, on the possibility of being a human that has the mental, emotional, and physical space to not be outwardly defined at every turn, is its own political act.”
Photography by Oscar Rene Cornejo
Sarah Workneh is Co-Director of Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture.