pre-college : curriculum

Curriculum

You can choose one of four majors - Painting, Sculpture, Ceramics, or Graphic design - and work with that medium in-depth. The curriculum also includes foundation classes in drawing and design that will help you improve your technical skills and strengthen your portfolio for admission to the country's foremost schools of art and design. Studio work is complemented by art history and workshops with visiting artists.  Outside the studio you will have evening and weekend activities that will expand your horizons and introduce you to the environment that attracts artists to Maine year after year.

Ceramics

The Ceramics studio at MECA is an exceptional facility and lets you explore a wide range of work. You will consider how to translate form into ideas through functional pots, vessels, and even large scale sculpture using wheel throwing and handbuilding construction techniques. Intensive instruction is also given in surface design and glazing.

Graphic Design

You will increase your visual literacy by exploring the principles of good design and learning to integrate fundamental design elements and typography. You will work with digital tools of the trade. Projects may include posters, maps, signs, brand identity, packaging, and book covers.

Painting

You will investigate color use, composition, and the inventive process involved in producing successful images on paper or canvas. Class sessions will include work from still life, interiors, landscape, and imagination. Focus will be on personal visual expression and the free use of the paint surface.

Sculpture

Sculpture introduces you to ways of expressing your ideas in three-dimensional form. Because sculpture is so much a process of working ideas and materials together at varying scales, students develop strategies for reasoning and coping with the unexpected. You may work with a variety of materials including metal and clay.

Drawing and Design

Drawing from observation is a key component of an artist’s training. Emphasis is placed on line, tone, and perceiving elements of structure and composition through studies of still life, landscape, and the figure. Classroom assignments and individual guidance will help to strengthen your drawing skills. Group critiques will help you understand drawing as a medium.

Design

Design classes give you a survey of basic visual language and organizing skills that are at the heart of all art making. Two-Dimensional Design investigates visual language through exercises that explore the principles of figure-ground relationships, composition, balance, rhythm, pattern, scale, value, and color.

Many of the same considerations apply to Three-Dimensional Design, with a special emphasis placed on the exploration of form and space, and the consideration of mass, volume, and scale. In addition students learn that each material has unique qualities, benefits and limitations, and understanding those parameters is essential in bringing any idea to its successful fruition.

Art History

All art has a context, and art history helps you understand how past and contemporary artists have responded to their times and how they have influenced their world. Slide lectures and class discussion will be complemented by a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Visiting Artist Workshops bring professional artists to the Program to facilitate workshops that introduce students to new ideas and different media. Past workshops have included: artists books, figure sculpture, jewelry, and glass.

Portfolio Development

Many Pre-College alumni go on to apply for admission to the country's top colleges of art and design. Pre-College helps strengthen your skills and build your portfolio.

Faculty critiques provide a supportive and valuable dimension to the curriculum. Critiques give you practice in talking about your own work and appreciating the work of others. You have the option of meeting with MECA’s Admissions counselors, who review student portfolios and provide individual feedback. Students are coached in the presentation of their portfolios and receive a CD documenting their portfolio work.

Our Faculty

Pre-College faculty are dedicated professionals and college instructors who teach at Maine College of Art or other art schools and art departments around the nation. Their education and experience reflect the College’s national reputation, its dedication to a solid studio foundation, and the strength of its studio majors. Teaching assistants are advanced students or graduates of Maine College of Art who work with the faculty in classrooms and monitor the open studios.