MDRW 1 - Midterms and FRAC Picardie
In the MA and MFA program for Drawing, this week and last week were filled with midterms, critiques and thesis proposals. We also took a day trip to Amiens, France, where we visited the Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain Picardie Hauts-de-France, otherwise known as FRAC Picardie. Read the rest of the article to get a play by play of our week.
Monday, all of the Masters students had an allotment of five minutes to stand in front of the jury, composed of their department chair, the dean of graduate studies, and the professor of the thesis course. In this five minute allotment, students had to prepare a three minute long explanation of their desired thesis topic, the materials they have so far, and any other information they wished to give. For the remaining two minutes, the jury posed questions and gave advice. Students soon received the acceptance or denial of their thesis proposal by email, along with the comments and concerns from the jury.
This week, on Tuesday, the Master’s Drawing class took a field trip to FRAC Picardie in Amiens. They have an amazing collection of books, all on drawing. It was such a privilege to be able to use their resources for our upcoming projects and our thesis work. The staff was so helpful gathering books for us, related to our topics. They also organize a section of their library with books related to the art they have in their gallery, which is shared with other FRAC locations around the country.
“After a morning of research we went into the town of Amiens and had a nice lunch. The town is so cute.
For me, it was my first time outside of Paris, so it was fun to see a quiet French town. When we returned from lunch, we were given a personalized tour of their gallery.
I appreciated hearing about each work, the story behind the work and the artist, as well as how it created. Then we continued our research until we took the train back to Paris.”
– Ann Dahlman
On Wednesday, the MDRW students had class and discussed the personal project that we will be working on for the rest of the semester. We have to prepare a presentation of our works in progress and our plans for the rest of the semester.
This week, we do not have a Masterclass. Our new Masterclass teacher is Diogo Pimentao, an artist currently residing in London. This portion of our Masterclass will be compressed into three weeks, starting November 9th.