Haskins, a studio art major who later attended the prestigious Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture summer residency, is at work on her biggest art project yet: renovating a cavernous former flour mill into a dynamic center for contemporary culture.
In 2010 Haskins, who has worked in painting and video, and her husband, Grammy-winning trumpeter and composer Taylor Haskins, moved to Westport, New York, on Lake Champlain, with son Felix. The couple purchased the 11,000-square-foot space in 2021 and gradually transformed it into a stylish arts and music center. The Mill opened last summer as a welcoming center for exhibitions and performance.
“One of the most gratifying experiences as an artist is working with people such as Catherine, who identify with your motivations to not only make something new and ambitious but to also share it with others,” says sculptor Stephen Hendee, who created a site-specific, large-scale sculpture for the performance space.
The Mill features traditional white box galleries, an installation space, a speakeasy, and a high-ceilinged performance hall called the Listening Room, with acoustics fine-tuned by Taylor. The venue brings a full-on art house experience to an area without easy access to cutting-edge art and music. “You can come out, get a drink, have a meal with your family, and walk through the galleries,” Haskins says. “I would never call myself a curator, and I wouldn’t call this a museum. There isn’t language to define what’s happening here other than that the building is an artwork for me.”
