Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Interdisciplinary Approach image

Interdisciplinary Approach

MECA&D's MFA encourages students to think across traditional academic boundaries, expand their art practice, and challenge their intellectual curiosity.

Get curious
Full Residency image

Full Residency

24/7 access to state-of-the-art facilities & a vibrant creative community.

Work onsite
Low Residency image

Low Residency

Structure promotes flexibility and independence.

See where your art takes you
Connect with us about getting an MFA image

Connect with us about getting an MFA

Open houses, virtual info sessions, Grad National Portfolio Days, and more

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Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Work, critique, and network with artists from around the world.

Get your MFA Download the MFA viewbook

Whether you want to exhibit and lecture about your work, teach, write a book, or create an artist-run collective, our Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program encourages you to think across traditional academic boundaries and challenge your art practice and intellectual curiosity. Studio-based, with renowned faculty, visiting artists and carefully selected graduate advisors, the curriculum emphasizes the intersection of studio production, individual research, critical analysis, and travel to important and inspiring locations. This structure promotes the development of a professional lifelong practice.

From the first moment of Summer Intensive, you will experience a truly individualized education and focus on becoming an inventive, skilled, self-disciplined, engaged maker in the world and in your own community.

Choose from our Low or Full Residency options and base your studio wherever you decide — whether it’s on campus or anywhere your art takes you in the world.

Learn more

 

Artistic Excellence

View all stories
  • MFA candidate Mattie Hinkley featured in winter issue of American Craft

    Low residency MFA candidate Mattie Hinkley
    Read Story
  • MFA candidates take over the Venice Biennale 

    MFA candidates take over the Venice Biennale 
    Read Story
  • Phoebe Potts MFA ’02 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival

    Phoebe Potts MFA ’02 shares Too Fat for China with the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (August 5-20)
    Read Story
  • Parallels in the movement of humans and nature

    Brian Smith MFA '20 parallels the movement of humans and nature with Schooling Fish 
    Read Story
  • Roberta March MFA ’21 opens Em Movimento (In Motion) in Houston, TX

    Roberta March MFA '21
    Read Story
  • Sharon Shapiro MFA ’19 confronts racial and climate crises through utopian and dystopian lenses

    Sharon Shapiro MFA '19
    Read Story
  • Nancy Nesvet MFA ’04 chosen to curate From Palestine With Art exhibition at La Biennale d’ Arte, 2022

    Nancy Nesvet MFA '04
    Read Story
  • Ling-Wen Tsai’s Quiet Voids opens Friday March 11 at SPEEDWELL projects

    Ling-Wen Tsai
    Read Story

FAQs

  • What is the difference between the Full Residency option and the Low Residency option?

    Students who choose the Full Residency option move to Portland, may have a studio, have consistent 24/7 access to MECA&D facilities and the activities that occur that happen in the College and around Portland during the school year. They are also able to take advantage of graduate electives and Teaching Assistantships. Our low residency MFA combines intense periods of on-campus instruction in Maine with the freedom and independence of working from any home location. Our low-residency structure is designed for experienced artists who want the ability and independence to maintain their ongoing careers while earning an MFA. Both MFA tracks offer an interdisciplinary approach that encourages students to think across traditional academic boundaries to challenge their art practice and intellectual curiosity.

  • What is the low residency structure?

    While most low residency programs offer 1-2 week on campus intensives, MECA&D is unique in offering an 8-week summer intensive trimester and a full fall and spring trimesters. The Summer Intensive trimester allows students a full on-campus experience each summer, while the Fall and Spring trimesters offer an academic year of studio and coursework from a student’s home studio. Short Winter and May residencies (for graduating students) complement the fall and spring trimesters. The low residency structure features year round contact with core faculty and a local studio advisor who meets with each student in their home studio during the fall and spring trimesters. Studio time is complemented by a rigorous program of online coursework. The MECA&D MFA low residency track is a full-time 60 credit program of study.

  • When does the program begin?

    The academic year kicks off annually with an eight-week Summer Intensive in Portland, Maine. The Intensive begins in early-June and runs through early August. See the Academic Calendar for more information.

  • How do I request program materials?

    You may request a viewbook by emailing admissions@meca.edu

  • What advice would you give about submitting my portfolio?

    Documentation of your work should be of professional quality. Choose images that best represent you as an individual. You may submit up to twenty images but we recommend that you thoughtfully edit the selection to support the ideas communicated in your letter of intent.

  • What should I put in my letter of intent?

    Describe your intended field of exploration to show us what materials, ideas, and approaches you are ready to embrace as part of your graduate study. Alongside an analysis of your recent work, describe how you anticipate your work moving in new directions in the future. Tell us how you are ready to challenge yourself and why you think MECA&D’s MFA program will help you do this.

  • How do I find out more about Financial Aid and Scholarships?

    To be eligible for aid, accepted applicants must have completed a FAFSA form online. Please visit the Financial Aid section for more information. All students may apply for remote research fellowships. Please feel free to contact Rachel Katz, Administrative Director of the MFA in Studio Art, at 207.699.5030 or at rkatz@meca.edu

  • Is there someone I can speak to about the MFA in Studio Arts?

    Please do not hesitate to contact our MFA point person, Rachel Katz rkatz@meca.edu

MFA candidate Mattie Hinkley featured in winter issue of American Craft image

MFA candidate Mattie Hinkley featured in winter issue of American Craft

Low residency MFA candidate Mattie Hinkley

If you haven’t grabbed a copy of the winter issue of American Craft yet, be sure not to miss the beautiful story written about MFA candidate and rising star Mattie Hinkley.

In the piece, “Domestic Bliss,” author Laine Bergenson Becco visits Hinkley in their Chico, California studio where they are currently pursuing their low residency MFA from our College. The pair explores Hinkley’s desire to create balance with objects that have both practical and visual appeal.

“Making interesting, sculptural everyday art objects, that’s where I get my energy from,” Hinkley shared with the outlet.

One of the objects featured in the article is Hinkley’s 2020 Wedge rag rug, made with muslin scrap and MDF that could be used for domestic activities that range from lounging to sex. Hinkley notes their belief that acts like sex should be acknowledged in domestic life in just the same way as cooking, cleaning, or eating, and domestic objects should reflect that role.

Hinkley is a true interdisciplinary artist, trained in illustration, residential construction, and fine furniture making. For their MFA thesis, they are focusing on how benches are made to bring people together.

“[In gallery spaces] we don’t recognize the bench because we’re sitting on it, but it’s as valuable as the paintings we’re looking at,” Hinkley proposes.

We look forward to seeing, and sitting on, their work at the ICA soon.

Learn more about Mattie’s work

MFA candidates take over the Venice Biennale  image

MFA candidates take over the Venice Biennale 

MFA candidates take over the Venice Biennale 

If you have been keeping up with @mecaart on Instagram this week, you will have spotted a few new voices taking over our feed. During a weeklong excursion to the Venice Biennale in Italy, we have been thrilled to see some of the most exciting exhibitions on view in the contemporary art world through the eyes of MFA candidates Grace Hager (@grace.makes), Phoebe Snyder (@premium_hogwash), and Steffany Ojeda-Reyes (@steffanyojeda_art).

“As a painter who recently started working three-dimensionally in ceramics, my eyes were keen for any sculpture on this trip,” Hager shared. “From long time favorites like a dancing Shiva bronze, to contemporary favorites like Claire Tabouret’s bronze bathers, and surprises like Mirko’s bronze ‘Roaring Lion’, Venice didn’t disappoint! Seeing work in person is always invaluable, but especially so when it comes to work in the round that activates the body and space.”

We hope you continue with us on this exciting journey of vicarious discovery until the cohort returns at the end of this week.

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Phoebe Potts MFA ’02 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival image

Phoebe Potts MFA ’02 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Phoebe Potts MFA ’02 shares Too Fat for China with the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (August 5-20)

Called “a comic look at the agony of adoption,” Phoebe Potts MFA ’02 takes her audience through a deeply personal and surprising journey through the experience of adopting a child in the one-woman-show Too Fat For China. The title of the show comes from Pott’s attempt to adopt a baby in China, when she was told her body mass index of 29 would stop her from doing so.

“In 2008, when we did this, you could adopt a baby in this country for the tune of $40,000,” Potts explained in an interview with Greater Boston. “You don’t pay a birth mother for the baby (that would be actual trafficking), but that is the amount you have to part with. We also learned that if we were ‘open to race,’ we could get a Black baby girl for $28,000, and a Black baby boy had this bargain price of $24,000. So, during Obama’s first year in the presidency, a Black baby boy is valued at 66% less than a white child through adoption.”

From her behind-the-scenes vantage point of the systemic racism and affordability barriers seemingly built into adoption, Potts discovers the depths of her own privilege that benefitted from GI bill wealth acquired by non-Black WWII veterans in her family and allowed her to join a parade of middle-class, American white women adopting international babies.

The show, which juxtaposes dark realizations about the adoption system with witty storytelling concluded a stellar sold-out run in Boston earlier this year. Starting next week and running through August 20, audiences can see Potts at the world-famous Edinburgh Fringe Festival with performances in Venue 236 at the Greenside @ Infirmary Street (6 Infirmary Street, EH1 1LT).

Parallels in the movement of humans and nature image

Parallels in the movement of humans and nature

Brian Smith MFA '20 parallels the movement of humans and nature with Schooling Fish 

Brian Smith MFA ’20, Schooling Fish, Plywood, paper pulp, pigment, enamel, 21' x 13', 2022.

Between ticketing and baggage claim at the Portland International Jetport this tourist season, visitors have the chance to get a glimpse of the creativity and artistry for which our city is known.

On view until November 2022, Brian Smith’s MFA ’20 Schooling Fish installation isolates similarities between humans and other creatures while drawing parallels between the way people navigate the concourses and fish move through the local bodies of water.

Smith, a sculptor interested in queer ecology philosophies and the human relation to nature, intends for the work to be and feel specific to Maine by drawing inspiration from the dark blue teal color of the icy surf just beyond the Jetport’s walls. His content translates a yearning to reconnect with the natural world and make sense of it through the language of reflection and awe.

Today, Smith teaches as an adjunct professor at our College. He has exhibited in group shows in Maine, Antwerp, Texas, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, and Montana. He has been written about in the following magazines: The ChartFloorrDivide, and Working Artists. Smith has spent time at Hewnoaks Artist Colony and will attend Monson Arts Residency in the fall of 2022.

Explore Smith's Work
Roberta March MFA ’21 opens Em Movimento (In Motion) in Houston, TX image

Roberta March MFA ’21 opens Em Movimento (In Motion) in Houston, TX

Roberta March MFA '21

Roberta March MFA '21 opens Em Movimento (In Motion) in Houston, TX

On Saturday, June 11, the exhibition Em Movimento (In Motion), featuring work by Roberta March MFA ’21 and fellow Brazilian-American artist Tony Parana, will open at the Monterroso Gallery (1824 Spring Street, #104, Houston, TX). The show explores how we keep moving to survive in this world.

In her pieces, March responds to the five elements of nature—earth, air, fire, water, and space—to reflect on “how we need to mold ourselves, becoming fluid to keep adapting to the new circumstances which life brings to us.”

The exhibition will remain on view until July 2.

Read more about “Em Movimento”
Sharon Shapiro MFA ’19 confronts racial and climate crises through utopian and dystopian lenses image

Sharon Shapiro MFA ’19 confronts racial and climate crises through utopian and dystopian lenses

Sharon Shapiro MFA '19

Chronicling the complexities of growing up female in the American South, I present a contemporary viewpoint on femininity and feminism.

Sharon Shapiro MFA '19 confronts racial and climate crises through utopian and dystopian lenses

Sharon Shapiro MFA ’19, Sacrifice, Collage on paper, 12”x11”, 2022

Keep an eye out for all of Sharon Shapiro MFA '19 shows coming up throughout the summer. Inspired by personal events, local lore, and pop-cultural references, Shapiro’s paintings and collage works range from fantastical, utopian subject matter to dystopian realities that confront how our current racial and climate crises are deeply linked.

“Chronicling the complexities of growing up female in the American South, I present a contemporary viewpoint on femininity and feminism. [..] I use nostalgia to simultaneously raid and revere memory in a continuing endeavor to establish a sense of place in a world where meaning shifts and recollections fail. Visual disruption and vivid color create a discordant scene that tilts the viewers' relationship to the subject.”

Solo Show: Then the dream changed - Arlington Arts Center, Arlington, VA
On view: April 9 - June 18, 2022

Group Show: Coined in the South - MINT Museum Uptown, Charlotte, NC
On view: March 26 - July 3, 2022

Solo Show: Fever Dream - Artisan Lofts, New York, NY 
On view: January 21 - June 16, 2022

Explore Shapiro's work

 

Header Image: Sharon Shapiro MFA ’19, Sacrifice, Collage on paper, 12”x11”, 2022
Nancy Nesvet MFA ’04 chosen to curate From Palestine With Art exhibition at La Biennale d’ Arte, 2022 image

Nancy Nesvet MFA ’04 chosen to curate From Palestine With Art exhibition at La Biennale d’ Arte, 2022

Nancy Nesvet MFA '04

The name, From Palestine With Art, may sound very simple. But upon further examination, when we use the preposition ‘from,’ it implies that there is a physical place. That it exists. That the name, and its map, and its people, conflicts with other narratives that are being pushed … It's a very subtle linguistic aspect to the show.

Nancy Nesvet MFA '04 chosen to curate From Palestine With Art exhibition at La Biennale d' Arte, 2022

Congratulations to Nancy Nesvet MFA '04, curator of the official Collateral exhibition From Palestine With Art at the 2022 Venice Biennale! Nesvat currently serves as Head Curator at the Palestine Museum US, the main sponsor of the exhibition.  

The exhibition features work from 19 artists living in Palestine and the Palestinian diaspora. It includes paintings, photography, installation, sound and a live olive tree on an 1877 map of Palestine reproduced on the floor, as well as catalog essays. 

Samia Halaby, Venetian Red, 2021. Photo courtesy Samia Halaby.

“I wanted to show that this is such a beautiful place that is shared by a beautiful people that is still there after 4,000 years … that despite all the violence and destruction that's going on, the connection that people have to nature in Palestine has not been abandoned,” Nesvet explained in a recent interview with the Arts Council of Greater New Haven. “The name, From Palestine With Art, may sound very simple. But upon further examination, when we use the preposition ‘from,’ it implies that there is a physical place. That it exists. That the name, and its map, and its people, conflicts with other narratives that are being pushed … It's a very subtle linguistic aspect to the show.”

From Palestine With Art

Palazzo Mora, Room 8, Cannaregio 3659

(Ca'd'Oro vaporetto stop, then follow the signs to Palazzo Mora)

VIP preview days April 20-22, 2022

On view April 23 – November 27, 2022

Organizing institution: Palestine Museum US

Curator: Nancy Nesvet MFA '04

Planning to attend the event? Nesvet’s exhibition to your list of must-sees this year! Tickets are available for all days on the La Biennale d'Arte website.

Read more about From Palestine With Art
Ling-Wen Tsai’s Quiet Voids opens Friday March 11 at SPEEDWELL projects image

Ling-Wen Tsai’s Quiet Voids opens Friday March 11 at SPEEDWELL projects

Ling-Wen Tsai

Ling-Wen Tsai Quiet Voids opens Friday March 11 at SPEEDWELL projects

Join Professor of Sculpture, Foundation, and MFA Ling-Wen Tsai (蔡姈妏) for her solo exhibition Quiet Voids at SPEEDWELL projects, 630 Forest Avenue, Portland, ME.

Interested in the nature of seeing, and how our visual experiences influence our reality, Tsai's work takes a subtle, abstract, and minimalistic approach. While remaining true to who she is as an individual, Tsai has developed an artistic approach that draws the viewers into her world while still leaving space for self-reflection.

Our surroundings, whether natural or built, have a tremendous influence on our state of mind and have the power to shape our lives. [...] During recent winters, I have had the opportunity to spend some time alone in a rustic cabin in the remote Eastern Mountains of Maine. The seemingly endless vistas of snow-covered landscapes astonished me. Quiet and untouched white terrain, devoid of auditory and visual clutter, provides a spacious dimension where I am invited to enter and to just be. 

Quiet Voids is on view at SPEEDWELL projects March 11 - May 7 on Thursdays through Saturdays (12-6pm).

Explore more of Ling-Wen’s work