Overview of General Fine Arts
Maryland Institute College of Art
The general fine arts (GFA) program at MICA provides a curriculum and advising structure for students whose creative process is best served by interdisciplinary exploration. Characterized by individual exploration, the program gives you the freedom to choose courses offered by any MICA department within a course of study to prepare you for a career in the competitive world of professional art. The GFA curriculum allows you to assimilate knowledge, concepts, and skills from a broad range of courses and mediums. The program prepares you to be a historically grounded, perceptive, and critical analyst of the world of contemporary art and culture while providing you with the tools and experiences needed to develop a unique artistic voice.
Students who choose to major in GFA tend to be independent, enjoy incorporating various mediums into their work, and are highly motivated to become versatile, resourceful artists. The energy and size of the department—GFA is the largest major at MICA—reflects the reality that boundaries that once separated the disciplines of the arts are fading. Each GFA major crafts an individual program of study that supports a personal artistic direction that is interdisciplinary, theme-centered, or of multimedia construction. As a sophomore, Introduction to GFA allows you to explore ideas in mediums of your choosing among a community of like-minded artists. The small size of the class allows the professor to serve both as teacher and personal advisor for each student. With your advisor, you select a core program of 24–30 credits that forms your individualized studio concentration; an additional 15 elective credits allows you to explore beyond your concentration.
During your junior and senior years, you work more independently, continuing a series of artwork in a personal direction. Students who qualify in the junior year gain access to independent studio spaces in MICA’s Studio Center. The Senior Independent Thesis program is a year-long, interdisciplinary experience which GFA majors share with majors in drawing and painting. Visiting artists, critics, writers, philosophers, and filmmakers and a core of faculty mentor you as you write a thesis statement and an artist’s statement to complement the visual work you present in the senior exhibition.
Studio Center – A Vibrant Art Community
MICA’s Studio Center, in a renovated loft building in Baltimore’s Station North Arts & Entertainment District, was recently expanded to add new studios for upper division students in GFA, painting, and drawing. A lounge, computer lab, and kitchen, as well as a critical mass of artists, support a strong sense of community among students in 2D fine arts. Recent visiting artists who have met with students and led critiques in the space include Steve Kossak, associate curator of Asian art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Beverly Fishman, head of graduate painting at Cranbrook; high-profile MICA alumni, including Jeff Koons ’76, performance artist John Giglio ’90, and filmmaker Lee Boot ’82; and Robert Fishko, director of New York’s Forum Gallery. Studio Center provides the environment in which you’ll have time and focus to develop a significant body of work while exploring the intellectual connections between work in the studio and readings, writings, and discussions.
Recent Graduates
Recent GFA graduates have gone on to prestigious MFA programs—Yale, Columbia, Chicago, Cranbrook, UCLA. One opted to study arts administration at Carnegie- Mellon. The first recipient of MICA’s $25,000 Gelman Travel Award was a GFA major, whose project took her to her home nation of Rwanda to create memorials for victims of the Rwandan genocide.
Collaborative & Cross-Disciplinary Experiences
MICA offers numerous opportunities for artists to gain hands-on experience and collaborate across disciplines and mediums. The College has a long-standing relationship with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and its musicians, who have worked alongside MICA students to explore the intersection of art and music. In a recent project, MICA students created site-specific installations that were displayed in the lobby of Meyerhoff Symphony Hall (below). Many GFA students take advantage of MICA’s unique Exhibition Development Seminar to develop a portfolio of curatorial or exhibition design work. A recent project of that course was At Freedom’s Door: Challenging Slavery in Maryland, a two-year collaboration with the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and the Maryland Historical Society, which culminated in a major exhibition at both institutions, with accompanying events at MICA and at Morgan State University.