Our Studio Practice MFA challenges artists to discover their ideas and where they fit into the bigger picture. This three-year, full-residency program is built around a core of research-intensive creative investigation that engages students in interdisciplinary experimentation and exploration through the experience of making. Students are supported in a range of disciplines, from the traditional to the emerging, as they consider the various ways art lives in and beyond the studio.
The School of Art + Design MFA in Studio Practice combines the intimacy of an intensive art school experience with the breadth of an urban public university. Students have access to a vibrant regional arts community and opportunities for interdisciplinary learning and collaboration.
You’ll work closely with resident faculty and are granted an individual studio space, accessible 24 hours a day, in proximity to your peers, and be tightly connected to your own cohort of fellow MFA students, as well as the thriving Portland art community. Our program is also proud to offer funding opportunities through Graduate Assistantships.
Our MFA program is the ideal place for students who wish to truly focus on their graduate work and on the effort of creating art for a culminating solo exhibition, which will come at the end of their third year. This third year of the program is integral to finding your footing as a working artist in whatever career you choose to follow after graduation.
Our graduates work as professional artists, working in creative capacities with a variety of businesses, non-profit organizations, and community groups; exhibiting in commercial, academic, and alternative galleries; producing commissioned work for private and public initiatives. The program’s intensive teaching practicum equips our graduates to teach fine arts at the college level.