Visual Arts

Here at the University of Maine at Farmington our approach to the arts incorporates our belief in the importance of educating critical thinkers, capable makers, and engaged citizens. A small interdisciplinary and ideas based program seated in a dynamic liberal arts institution, the visual arts program offers an intimate conversation in the history, purpose and process of making art. Students studying the arts acquire powerful problem solving skills, complex critical thinking skills and a pronounced world view that will aid them in a variety of future endeavors within the Arts and beyond.

The University of Maine Farmington Art program offers a conceptually driven interdisciplinary and integrated art education. This gives our students the opportunity to not only learn the tools and techniques of artmaking, but also to see their work in the context of contemporary society. Our students are making work about everything from Facebook to world politics. We offer degree programs in Painting, Sculpture, New Media, Combined Media, Arts Administration, and a minor in Art History within a robust liberal-arts environment.

A BA in Art from UMF can launch a career as a practicing artist, prepare a student for graduate school, and open doors to careers in wildly unrelated fields such as Business and Law. Our goal as educators is to teach the same passion for learning that brings us to the classroom as engaged members of an educational community. Here at UMF learning, experimenting and engaging ideas is a collaborative adventure taken on by students and faculty alike. 

Art Department Highlights

There are some incredibly exciting things happening in the Visual and Performing Arts at UMF.

• The Visual and Performing Arts department is planning to complete renovations to Merrill Hall in the summer of 2008. These renovations will expand the sculpture facility, add a drawing room on the second floor and relocate the VAPA computer lab to the second floor. The new VAPA lab will be accompanied by a Video Production Studio with a green screen and an adjoining sound booth and Sound Production Studio.

• The groundbreaking for Emery Community Arts Center (a shared community and university space) is slated for Fall of 2008. This space will not only give students a venue for art shows and performance, it will also be a place where community and university artists come together and share their work.

• Senior Art students have acquired a new house for Senior Studios. This space provides individual studio space to seniors and communal spaces that foster collaboration and critical evaluation in a constructive and intimate environment. Sharing a house as a type of senior sanctuary creates its own very intimate academic community while engaging the rigorous demands of the senior capstone experience.

• In October of 2007, four VAPA faculty accompanied nine Art and Music students to New York City. We plan to make this an annual event.

• The first annual UMF video and animation festival, “Pixel Hunter” was held in April of 2008. We plan to make this an annual event.

More About the Program

Farmington hosts visiting artist events each semester that coincide with contemporary  UMF Art Gallery exhibitions at the UMF Gallery. Recent shows include Rob Shetterly and Joel Seah, both of whom have exhibited all over the country. Every exhibition has an opening reception that is open to the campus community.

Students actively engage in installation and exhibition around the campus. For example, so far during the 07-08 school year students have installed pieces in the Student Center, the Library and in the adjacent park.

There are two arts related clubs currently in operation on campus: The Art Renegades and The Ministry of Experimental Arts. Both of these groups are actively organizing performances, exhibitions and trips for their members and the school community.

VAPA embraces the idea of a multidisciplinary education, and encourages students to design their own majors. Currently we have students majoring in Art and Music, Art and Sociology, and Art and English.

(top) Vince Leonetti
working on Untitled (2008)
8' x 4' acrylic paint on plywood

(above right) Casey Brackett
working on Tomorrow's Apiary (2008)
Sculpture

For further information about the visual art department at UMF, please contact:

Robin Palmer-Mosher - robin.palmermosher@maine.edu