MECA offers a demanding and enlivening education in visual art and design, including undergraduate and graduate degrees and adult and youth programs.
Located in the heart of the Portland Arts District, Maine College of Art offers a Bachelor of Fine Arts, a Master of Fine Arts in Studio Arts, Master of Arts in Teaching, Salt Graduate Certificate in Documentary Studies, as well as Continuing Studies for adults and youths, including a Pre-College intensive for high school students.
The College has transformed a former department store into the main campus building with vibrant classrooms and studios that are open 24/7. Also located in the Porteous Building, the Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA serves a critical regional role in its commitment to presenting contemporary, provocative work by living artists from Maine and around the globe. The Joanne Waxman Library is one of the largest independent libraries in Northern New England and a major resource for the region.
At MECA, undergraduate students spend the first year developing a foundation and the second year exploring a variety of media. At the start of junior year, students declare a major and spend the next two years working within their discipline. MECA offers 11 majors in the BFA program: Ceramics, Digital Media, Graphic Design, Illustration, Metalsmithing & Jewelry, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture, Textile & Fashion Design, and Woodworking & Furniture Design. The College provides individual studios to all juniors and seniors. MECA is part of a five-college alliance that allows students to access classes and resources in the surrounding area.
Maine College of Art delivers a demanding and enlivening education in visual art and design within an intimate learning community. We teach each student how to transform aspirations and values into a creative practice that serves as the foundation for a lifelong pursuit of personal and professional goals.
Maine College of Art’s educational philosophy is built on the premise that focused individual attention and meaningful collective inquiry produce the conditions in which students’ voices can find strength, clarity, and purpose. Our faculty of practicing professional artists, designers, writers, and scholars are committed and passionate educators who consider their classrooms to be extensions of their creative work. We give our students the tools they need to take risks, think critically and work creatively within, across, between and beyond disciplines. We are an institution that believes in nourishing and sustaining the creative evolution of our communities. We delight in engaging students in the process of becoming the inventive, skilled, self-disciplined, seriously playful, culture-making citizens upon whom our world depends.
