Catherine Clinger

We study and live in the homeland of the Wabanaki, the People of the Dawn. We extend our respect and gratitude to the many Indigenous people and their ancestors whose rich histories and vibrant communities include the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, Mi’kmaq Nation, Passamaquoddy Tribe, and Penobscot Nation.  We aim to help ensure that they are not forgotten and acknowledge relationships and claims to this area that are maintained to the present day by these people and communities, whether recognized by federal or state governments or living unseen in plain sight and throughout the world.

Before COA
Catherine taught at McGill University, University of New Mexico, University College London, Kent Institute of Art and Design, and New Mexico Highlands University. She is a Master Printmaker of Intaglio and Relief and Founder of Hexenspuk Press, New Mexico.

Personal Websites

http://www.historiesdrawingsprints.com/

Course Areas

art history, printmaking, drawing, philosophy, visual and critical theory

• Ph.D. Art History, University of London
• M.Phil. History of Art, University College London
• M.A. History of Art, University of New Mexico
• B.F.A. University of Kansas

Catherine is an artist, art historian, writer and devoted teacher. She embodies our ideals for the Allan Stone Chair as “an art historian with a studio practice, an established body of work, and a track record of teaching excellence.”

Catherine comes to us with a rich knowledge of Art from the eighteenth through twentieth centuries, Romanticism and critical theory; print culture in the transnational fields of science and technology; and, Contemporary Art.  She is a painter and is a Master Printer of Intaglio. 

Throughout her career as an artist and scholar, Catherine has demonstrated a commitment to developing, piloting, and participating in efforts to bring a wider range of human ecological awareness and action in the communities where she has taught. 

During time as a graduate student at the University of New Mexico, Catherine joined in the Sanctuary Movement, working to stem the restrictive immigration policies that targeted Central American asylum seekers.  She participated in various actions of civil disobedience including ones to protest the Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) to store transuranic radioactive waste at Carlsbad, New Mexico. 

Before leaving New Mexico to teach and study abroad, Catherine served for 12 years in the El Pueblo Fire Department.  Trained as an arson investigator and wildland firefighter, she worked in small villages, on public lands, and led an annual Head Start workshop for children to give them the tools needed to educate their own families about fire prevention and safety.

Catherine co-founded Los Amigos del Rio, a public advocacy group formed to protect the Upper Pecos River Valley from a proposed uranium and thorium processing facility on its banks.  She served as Board President of the Theater Residency Project founded by Cookie Jordan in Santa Fe and co-produced Left-Handed, a play performed in secondary schools to educate faculty and students about the variability of sexual orientation and gender identity in youth populations.  

Since arriving on Mount Desert Island in 2010, she has chosen to document its biotic diversity through her art.  The range of experiences in political, social, cultural, and natural worlds honed her eye and her heart as an artist, scholar, and activist. 

A recipient of various grants and fellowships, Catherine is currently working on a book related to German Romanticism and Mining Practices.

Selected Publications:

‘Speleological Interiority – The Mindfulness of a Spelunking Anatomist,’ in Discovering the Human Life Science and the Arts in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries, Ralf Haekel, Sabine Blackmore (Hg.), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, 2013).

‘Painted Nature -19th century landscape,’ Encyclopedia of World History, The Age of Revolutions, 1750-1914, Ed. James Overfield, (Oxford and Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO), 2012.

I know the Voices Dying with a Dying Fall, Exhibition Catalogue Essay for artist Robin Ward, Published by Omphalos Press, San Francisco, 2011.

‘Theory of the Ridiculous: Max Beckmann, Jean Paul, and Dostoevsky’s Donkey,’ Art History, Vol. 33, Issue 3, 2010.

‘Emanation and Return: Archive as Liberator,’ Afterimage: a journal of media arts and cultural criticism, vol. 35, no. 3, (November, 2008).

‘Notes on an Indulgence,’ Vertigo Magazine, volume 3, no. 6 (Summer 2007).

‘Retrieval and Transmittal in a Fictive Photographic Experience,’ in Johnson and the 33 Confessors, Los Angeles and London, 2007.