From Spanish hikes to Berlin book publishing, how Skidmore supported my dreams

Petite waves lapped a few yards away, lulling me into a light nap. To my right was Monterreal Castel, a 12th-century fort in Baiona, Spain, once used to protect the Celtic Galician region from Viking attacks. In front of me loomed the island of Monteagudo, a floating mountain abstracted by clouds hanging over the gray sea. And to my left was the well-traveled path I had come from, the Camino de Santiago.  

My friend, Calli Frankel ’25 from Sherborn, Massachusetts, and I had been walking nearly 20 kilometers (about 12 miles) a day for the past week and a half along the “Coastal Portuguese Way,” starting in Porto, Portugal. It's one of multiple, historic pilgrimage routes leading to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.  

Our feet were routinely raw by the end of these hikes, and we’d made a routine out of finding a place to sit by the water each evening. We would rest on a new beach and reflect upon the people we’d met throughout our morning walks, writing in our journals all the details we knew we couldn’t forget. We were taking this journey as part of our studies at Skidmore, after all.

Calli and I received funding from Skidmore’s Student Opportunity Fund to hike the Camino de Santiago for our Periclean Honors Forum Civic Life Project. The project encourages students to push the boundaries of a typical academic or extracurricular undertaking through community service.  

Calli is a psychology and French double major, and I am a self-determined multimedia journalism major; we’re both driven by our interest in understanding people and the world around us. The hike is a historic Catholic pilgrimage, though many people, like us, complete the walk for non-religious reasons.  

She and I undertook our Camino after studying abroad during our spring semester; Calli participated in Skidmore in France in Montpellier, while I participated in a Skidmore-approved program in Copenhagen, Denmark.  

During our Camino project, we aimed to understand people’s motivations in taking weeks off work to walk seven hours a day. From talking with the people we have met, keeping detailed journals, and taking lots of photos, we have amassed a collection of research that we will transform into an art book together this fall as the cumulative product of the experience.  

“I think that my biggest takeaway from the Camino was what a great opportunity it was to hear and see new perspectives,” Calli said of the experience. “We met so many new people coming from different walks of life, and choosing to do this walk for very different, and oftentimes really heavy reasons. This combined with the fact that we got to explore new villages every day — that level of discovery opened my eyes to so many new beautiful lives and communities.” 

After two weeks of living out of a backpack, sleeping in large hostels with 40 people sharing a room, and spending the entirety of each day walking through farmlands and coastlines, I had one day before my next adventure started: an internship at the independent art and photography book publisher, SHIFT BOOKS, in Berlin. There, I would be working on an artist interview publication with my friend Renée Fritschel ’25, a studio art major from Cambridge, Massachusetts, who had recently studied abroad in Florence, Italy, as part of another program approved by Skidmore’s Office of Off-Campus Study and Exchanges.  

For the summer, I received one of Skidmore’s SEE-Beyond awards to spend two months in Germany’s capital. The award allows students to apply academic-year learning to the real world and to discover the connections between our Skidmore education and future goals.  

With my self-determined major in multimedia journalism, I am particularly interested in exploring how I can combine multiple mediums of communication. Working at a photography book publishing press allows me to explore how design, writing, and photography can work together to make an individual’s story tangible. This experience is also helping me consider a career in the independent arts and publishing world after I graduate.

At SHIFT BOOKS, I am working directly with the co-founders to help write PR copy, publish articles for their website, and organize their immense collection of vintage photography. I was also invited to attend the Rencontres d’Arles with them for the first week of July, which takes place in the south of France and is one of the largest photography festivals in Europe.  

In Arles, I attended over 20 photography exhibitions, which range from documentary to fine arts and are displayed in centuries-old cloisters, churches, and catacombs. I also attended talks from renowned professionals in the field. It was incredibly inspiring to see the breadth of what the medium can accomplish and the social change imagery can instill. (You can read an article I wrote  about the experience on SHIFT BOOKS' website.)  

While learning about the business and logistics of photography and art book publishing, I have also been able to work on starting my own publication with Renée, who received Skidmore’s Summer Experience Fund (SEF) to pursue our project. SEF provides stipends to Skidmore students, so they can gain skills, knowledge, connections, and experience without the burden of having to support themselves during unpaid summer experiences. 

We aim to explore artist collaboration through conversation-style interviews that present a more balanced power dynamic between interviewer and interviewee. During these interviews, we collaborate on a physical art piece with the artists to further engage in the concept of collaboration. We are documenting these sessions and putting them together in a publication. Adam Tinkle, director of Skidmore’s John B. Moore Documentary Studies Collaborative (MDOCS) and associate professor of media and film studies, is the advisor for our project.   

“I am excited to be making something that invites community collaboration and links studio practices with broader questions that face the art world,” Renée told me.

I wouldn’t be able to have any of these experiences without the financial support of Skidmore. The College’s wide range of funding sources offers students from all academic backgrounds the opportunity to pursue aspects of their academic and professional careers without having to worry about the financial aspects.

Maitreya Ravenstar '25

Funding for many of these opportunities came from the Zankel Experience Network, which offers Skidmore students exclusive experiential learning opportunities and powerful connections to help us advance our academic and professional goals over the summer.  

While I have been able to take advantage of these funding opportunities to work on creative journalism projects, some of my peers are using the same resources to work on medical and scientific research; internships at museums, civic groups, and startups; and a range of other experiences. It is exciting to see what students can accomplish without the limitations of economic burdens, and I eagerly await learning what my peers have achieved with their summer vacations when I return to school this fall.