Each summer, MECA invites visiting artists, curators, and scholars to participate in MFA curriculum. In addition to critiques and studio visits with students, Visiting Artists deliver a lecture that is free and open to the public. Lectures are held in Osher Hall and begin at 6:30pm.

Michael Kimmelman
Thursday, June 21
“From New York to Europe and Back Again”

Michael Kimmelman’s talk is an intimate and story-filled reflection on his path from The New York Times’s Chief Art Critic, trawling the world’s museums and galleries to Foreign Correspondent (based in Berlin), reinventing cultural reporting from Marseille to Gaza to Berlin and Istanbul, all of which prepared the way for his current post as Architecture Critic, writing about issues facing us at a time when society and cities are rapidly changing.

Beth Lipman
Monday, June 25

Beth Lipman lives and works in Sheboygan Falls, WI. She has exhibited her work widely and received numerous awards including a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant, Wisconsin Arts Board Fellowship, and a Ruth Chenven Foundation Grant. Lipman has exhibited her work internationally at such institutions as the ICA at MECA, the RISD Museum, the Milwaukee Art Museum, and the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Radcliffe Bailey
Monday, July 2

Radcliffe Bailey creates his mixed media paintings by piecing together ancestral photographs, collected objects, and painted words and maps. Born in 1968 in New Jersey, Bailey now lives and works in Atlanta. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Atlanta College of Art in 1991. His work is permanently installed in the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and in numerous permanent collections including The Corcoran Gallery of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The High Museum of Art, and The Art Institute of Chicago.

Amze Emmons
Monday, July 9

Amze Emmons is an artist, illustrator, curator, living and working in Philadelphia, PA. Born in rural upstate New York, he received a BFA Ohio Wesleyan University. He went on to receive his MA and MFA from the University of Iowa. His work is exhibited both nationally and internationally. Currently, he teaches art at Muhlenberg College in Allentown. Prior to that he taught printmaking at the University of Iowa and drawing and print at University of Vermont.

Stanya Kahn
Monday, July 16

California-based Stanya Kahn is an interdisciplinary media artist. Working primarily in video, with a practice that includes performance, writing, and photography, Kahn's work inhabits a space between fiction and document, and stems from an extensive background in live performance. Kahn has worked in a collaborative team with artist Harry Dodge, and her work has shown in numerous venues nationally and internationally, including the Whitney Biennial, the California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art, and The Museum of Modern Art.

Francis Cape
Monday July 23

Francis Cape was trained as a woodcarver before receiving his MFA from Goldsmiths College, University of London. He has exhibited his work extensively in the US, including shows at the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center and the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art. Cape is represented by Murray Guyin New York City. He lives and works in Narrowsburg, NY.

Denise Markonish
Monday July 30

Denise Markonish is the curator at MASS MoCA where she has curated the exhibitions of Nari Ward, Petah Coyne and Inigo Manglano-Ovalle. Markonish also co-edited with Susan Cross the book Sol LeWitt: 100 Views. Previous to her work at MASS MoCA, Markonish was the curator at Artspace in New Haven, CT.

Anne Wilson
Monday, August 6

Anne Wilson is a Chicago-based visual artist who creates sculpture, drawings, performances and video animations that explore themes of time, loss, private and social rituals. Wilson is the recipient of grants from the Driehaus Foundation, Artadia, the Tiffany Foundation, and  the National Endowment for the Arts. Wilson's work is represented by Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago and Paul Kotula Projects, Detroit. She is a Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Generous support for the lecture series provided by the Quimby Family Foundation.

The priority deadline for applications to the Maine College of Art Master in Fine Arts program is January 15.

Drawn by its rugged beauty and reputation for fierce individualism, artists have long favored Maine as a place of retreat. For centuries, Maine has hosted enclaves of innovation. Artists well-versed in current discourse, engaged in global politics, and committed to pushing the boundaries of aesthetics, ethics and individual practice repeatedly choose this place to gather and work. Won’t you join us?

Maine College of Art’s Master of Fine Arts in Studio Arts takes a structural cue from its setting. We understand the importance of place, but also recognize that notions of place are indexical, as they are constantly re-framed by the shifting boundaries of individual experience.  With this in mind, we believe that our unique residency structure presents an ideal format for a 21st century arts education. Students benefit from an intensive Maine residency in summer with the freedom and independence of working from any home location in fall and spring. Our responsive curriculum emphasizes student-directed research geared to empower the voice of the individual, while our global network of faculty, advisors, visiting artists and alumni provides a strong community of support.

Medium Residency
Students can live anywhere while working towards their degree. Fall and spring semesters, experienced from any home location, support flexibility and independence. Summer and winter residencies in Maine provide the intensity of group interaction and feedback. This structure promotes the development of a sustainable lifelong practice.

Non-Resident Studio Advisors
During fall and spring trimesters, each student is carefully paired with a studio advisor for their home location.  Advisors meet one-on-one with students in their personal studios.  With over a decade of experience, the program has established an extensive network of studio advisors from across North America and abroad and can support students living in any location. While the majority of our instructors are practicing studio artists, we are committed to exploring other disciplinary perspectives through faculty whose research areas lie outside the arts.

Visiting Artists
An international roster of visiting artists, curators and critics join the program throughout the summer, each for a week at a time. Visiting artists deliver a public lecture, conduct one-on-one studio visits with every student, participate in group critiques and take part in an interview or classroom activity.

More about the program
Apply now

Image credit:
Marissa Lare MFA '11,  “Siren Song, “digital photograph, 2011.

Current MFA student Kim Vose Jones MFA '12 is exhibiting at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in New Brunswick, Canada. Vose was selected for the gallery's Studio Watch program which offers public exposure for promising emerging New Brunswick artists. Her installation, A Farewell to Flesh, features multiple components utilizing a ton an a half of Nova Scotia salt in sculptural forms. Prior to enrolling in the graduate program at MECA, she volunteered at a clinic in Pakistan, attended the Simone de Beauvoir Institute at Concordia University and studied glass at Alfred University.

Read the review
Kim's website

MFA alum Nancy Nesvet has curated an exhibition of work by Maine artist Judy Taylor. Taylor's 11-panel Labor Mural was removed in March from the headquarters of Maine's Department of Labor by Governor Paul LePage. A large-scale reproduction of the mural, preliminary drawings, labor paintings and supporting work
will be on view through September 20th at VisArts in Rockville, Maryland.The show will include an opening reception on September 8th, an artist talk by Judy Taylor on September 10th and a panel discussion on September 15th focusing on the intersection of art and politics. Panelists include Georgetown University Labor History Professor Joe McCartin; Julian Spirer, an attorney who has argued cases on art in the public sector; Don Tuski, President of Maine College of Art and Penny Harris, former President, League of
Women Voters, Maine.

This July, Gina Siepel MFA '08 is leading a series of boat expeditions through the Bronx River and the Jamaica Bay National Wildlife Refuge as part of CACOPHONY, a project that offers a new orientation through familiar urban geography. Participants join the artist for a canoe ride, or “listening trip,” which is conducted in silence in order to experience and record the mixture of sounds on the waterways. The route travels through rich bird habitats and the sound recordings and lists of observed bird species will be posted online.  

Gina’s work often focuses on the potential for real action in real life and she likes the employ the spirit of the “citizen scientist” in developing a personal understanding of the world.  One of her past works featured a commemorative altar that was used to transport a sewing machine through New York City. CACOPHONY is part of the Sea Worthy Festival, sponsored by Flux Factory in New York, a nonprofit artists collective in New York City.  For more information about Gina’s work, visit www.ginaseipel.com

In keeping with the Institute for Infinitely Small Things’ mission to “conduct creative, participatory research that aims to temporarily transform public spaces and instigate dialogue about democracy, spatial justice and everyday life,” the Boston-based art group presented “Transgender Bathroom Dedication.”  Catherine D’Ignazio MFA ‘05, aka “kanarinka,” is co-director of the experimental curatorial group iKatun and a founding member of the Institute for Infinitely Small Things. This project was part of “Boston’s Best 40-ennial,” a 19-minute unauthorized exhibition in the bathroom of the MFA Boston organized by Greg Cook on June 20.

The exhibition dedicated the men’s room at the MFA Boston to Dean Spade, arrested in 2002 for using the men’s room in Grand Central Station, and the women’s room room at the MFA Boston to Chrissy Pollis, the victim of a transgender hate crime in a Maryland bathroom in May, 2011.  The show has received local and national attention. D’Ignazio MFA ‘05 also runs the Affective Geographies Research Cluster at RISD, where she teaches in the Digital Media Graduate Program.  For more information, visit www.ikatun.com

The Joan Mitchell Foundation, in collaboration with CUE Art Foundation, is pleased to announce an exhibition of its 2010 MFA Grant
Program Recipients. Michel Droge MFA '10 is one of the 15 selected recipients and received a $15,000 grant. From June 9 - July 30, the 15 recipients will be showing current artwork at CUE Art Foundation.

The annual MFA Grant Program was created in 1997 to help MFA painters and sculptors in furthering their artistic careers and to aid in the transition from academic to professional studio work upon graduation. A complimentary catalogue, available at CUE's gallery, has been published on the occasion of this exhibition. The catalogue features works and bios for each artist and essays on their work.

The Joan Mitchell Foundation was established in April 1993 as a not-for-profit corporation following the death of Joan Mitchell in October 1992. The Foundation strives to fulfill the ambitions of Joan Mitchell to aid and assist the needs of contemporary artists and to demonstrate that painting and sculpture are significant cultural necessities.

Alina Gallo MFA ‘08 of Portland was named a 2011 Monhegan Island artist in residence by the Monhegan Artists’ Residency Corporation.

Gallo received a BFA from Naropa University and an MFA from Maine College of Art. She was a featured artist in the 2008 Center for Maine Contemporary Art (CMCA) Biennial and will be part of “Drawing from the Collection” at the L.C. Bates Museum this summer. In her work, she employs symbols “to relate to and deconstruct the history of Persian, Indian and Christian miniature painting.” On Monhegan she hopes to integrate elements of the island landscape into her work. 

Gallo is keeping a blog during her time on the island.

Image:  Alina Gallo, Visitation, homemade egg tempera on panel, 2011

The MFA in Studio Arts at Maine College of Art is pleased to announce the publication of "Mapping the Intelligence of Artistic Work; An Explorative Guide to Making, Thinking, and Writing" by Anne West. In this book West describes a technique she calls "mapping through writing" that encourages visual artists to ask strategic questions, approach problems, and catalyze creative thinking. The book is structured as a series of exercises and prompts that define the mapping process and introduce methods for artists to develop, articulate, and disseminate ideas.

"Mapping the Intelligence of Artistic Work" was edited by Moth Press Director Katarina Weslien. According to Weslien, "Anne West has cultivated a flexible, non-linear writing approach for the artist-writer. The book introduces multiple skill sets to stimulate creative thinking, raising connection to the surface by creating visual maps of interconnecting links. It is a book supportive of the making process, an invaluable to anyone interested in articulating the layers of meaning embedded in the process of making."

West is a visiting artist in the MFA program this summer. She will give a public lecture on July 18 followed by a booksigning.

Read the interview between Weslien and West

Order the book

Alexandra Silverthorne MFA '10 will exhibit selections from her series A Building in Which… in a three-person exhibition at the BlackRock Center for the Arts. In addition she is finishing a book of photographs and short writings from her MidNights series.  The book features an essay by Jayme McLellan, Director of Civilian Art Projects, and a discussion with Montreal-based curator Rebecca Duclos. The book will be published in Summer 2011. In August, Silverthorne will participate in HiFi vs. LoFi at Lala Gallery in Lafayette, Indiana.

Image: Photos from Silverthorne's thesis exhibition at the ICA at MECA in 2010.

Sienna Gallery launched the publication of a new monograph "Radical Setimentalism," on the work of Lauren Fensterstock with color illustrations and an essay by Carol Diehl, Contributing Editor for Art in America. Sienna Gallery will represent Fensterstock at the PULSE Art Fair in New York in March. This summer Fensterstock will have a solo show at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art and participate in a group show at the Racine Art Museum. This fall, she will have a two-person show with John Bisbee at Aucocisco Gallery in Portland. Fensterstock is the Academic Director of the MFA program.