Marsha Skinner

Remembrance By David L. Witt

“Marsha Skinner is not famous and the I Ching was really happy about that.”

Quote by Marsha Skinner, December 13, 2025

For those of us who knew Marsha this quote will seem very much in character. Arriving in Taos from Boston, Massachusetts on Thanksgiving night 1976, she returned to what she considered to be her home region. She was raised in Cañon City, Colorado at the northern end of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Armed with an undergraduate degree in philosophy and Asian art from Antioch University, she came here determined to make her way in the world as a visual artist.

Over many decades she did just that becoming one of the most accomplished painters in New Mexico. Her non-figurative art owed a certain debt to Abstract Expressionism but also, and likely more importantly, to Japanese calligraphy including study with renowned Japanese shodo and 8th dan aikido teacher Shoseki Abe (1915-2011).

Her most important artistic relationship was with the writer/composer/visual artist John Cage (1912-1992) whom she met in the 1960s. By the 1990s John Cage and choreographer Merge Cunningham asked Marsha to create sets, lighting, and costumes for four of their collaborations. In the most famous of these, Beach Birds, dancers clad in black and white also wore ribbed gloves, a Skinner innovation that had not been tried before. Cage included her paintings in major group exhibitions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles.

Her artistic connection with Cage (beginning the day after they met) came through their use of the I Ching, allowing the role of chance to guide art creation and much else about how they lived their lives. Marsha said, “Chance is the opposite of visualization…the deliberate use of chance greatly amplifies accident or non-intention…The difficult part is to let go of intention.”

Marsha and I were in regular conversation over 47 years and experienced near daily contact over the past month. The I Ching hexagrams continued to guide her until the very end. The I Ching may have been happy about her not becoming famous. Perhaps, though, the I Ching was equally happy about her becoming a superb creator.

Marsha was predeceased by her parents and sister. She requested no commemorations. For those who may wish to mark her life and passing, you may give her a thought while in contemplation along one of our beautiful mountain streams.