Catalogue

Since 1981 the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts has offered a low-residency program leading to the master of fine arts degree. For three intensive summer sessions, artists from a variety of fields—film/video, music/sound, painting, photography, sculpture, and writing—live and work on the Bard campus in an environment that encourages proficiency and recognizes the importance of engaged discussion to the artistic process. During the eight-week sessions, each Bard MFA student works individually, in conferences with faculty and visiting artists, in caucuses of their discipline, and in seminars and critiques with the community as a whole. Work toward the MFA degree continues in independent study during the intervening winters. Bard MFA students include active mid-career artists, teachers, and professionals in other fields, as well as recent college graduates. The faculty is composed of working artists who are concerned with nurturing student artists and with the theory and practice of their own art.