MFA 2022 Freak Out Forum

[MFA-Painting-2022]

On 10/3/2021 at 9:00 AM, Michelle Santa Cruz said:

Hello all you creative and interesting art people and MFA hopefuls out there!

 

I decided to kick off the 2022 MFA application season forum, this morning, October 3rd. I saw another one that had some "Post-COVID Era" kinda title, and for some reason it was posted WAY back in July. I started this thread in keeping with the traditional "MFA XXXX Freak Out Forum" format. And our world is CERTAINLY not "post-COVID," by any stretch.

(I also wanted to steer it away from that person who started it because I noticed that poster created last year's thread as well, and that poster is not applying to any MFA programs at all. I don't know why he keeps posting MFA Freak Out Forum threads??? It's kind of weird. I noticed that this non-MFA applicant also seems to be trying to control the MFA conversation this year as he attempted to monopolize and belittle people last year. I'm hoping people post on this thread, instead).

 

Anyway, keeping things POSITIVE!!!!!

 

WHERE IS EVERYONE APPLYING?

WHERE ARE YOU COMING FROM?

WHERE DID YOU GET YOUR B.A., B.F.A., etc?

WHAT KIND OF ART DO YOU CREATE?

WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO ACHIEVE WITH AN MFA?

 

Here we are. SO... LET'S... GO!!!

Hi @Michelle Santa Cruz, 

Thanks for creating this. I just read your whole explanation. It’s weird that they do that but anywhere we can get information from is useful! I studied mural painting and classical techniques in Mexico (UNAM) many years ago. I studied in California (LCAD) for classical realism and graduated 5 1/2 years ago. I’ve been working ever since and now want to go into something a little bit funkier where I can experiment and play more with paint and abstraction. I’m applying to Concordia MFA Fall 2022 in Painting. Here are some of my pieces. I can’t upload the others because they’re more than 500kb. How about you? What is your story about the arts? It’s always nice to hear others’ stories!

[MFA-Painting-2022]

On 1/13/2022 at 9:11 PM, Antisocialprintmaker said:

Hey everyone! I haven't posted at all this year, but I'm really stoked to be applying this year. I applied to University of South Florida, Florida State, University of Florida, Bard, Syracuse, Laguna College of Art, and Maine College of Art. I'm panicking about getting in so I picked a lot of programs to apply to this year. Bard already has my info from applying last year and they really liked my work last year so I am reapplying. I hope the faculty doesn't walk out again? I found the Bard MFA meme page and I'm a little frightened tbh. Not sure what happened there? The focus of my practice at the moment is painting, but I did start to get into installation work pre-covid and want to dig into that for grad school when I have more time/support. I currently manage a gallery and coffee house in St. Augustine, FL and sell body jewelry on Etsy. I hope everyone gets in where they want to go and good luck finishing up final touches on your applications! ?

Hi @Antisocialprintmaker,

I got my BFA at LCAD. I can recommend their MFA, stellar work from everyone there and a really supportive community. I would’ve done my MFA there years ago but I’m a father and can’t justify the expenses from living in Cali. Now I’m looking to change my work but if you’re interested in figure and narrative, it’s definitely the place to go. Also New York Academy is excellent. Sorry about the late heads up. I just joined today. 

[MFA-Painting-2022]

On 1/15/2022 at 9:21 PM, Antisocialprintmaker said:

So their meme page is on Instagram and the username was just funny to me. I did a lot of print before covid, but its very hard to do lithographs or installation work without the proper setup. So my goals in grad school are to work on those pretty heavy, but I'm applying with painting everywhere, because it's my strongest work and what I get into shows with/have gallery representation for. Good luck to you too!

Here's my website if anyone wants to look and I heard back from Laguna College of Art and they said they'll give me an admission decision and scholarship decision next week ?

https://www.hannahkeatsartwork.com

Hey, that’s phenomenal @Antisocialprintmaker!! 
Let me know if you get in and I’d be happy to put you in touch with people working there who can help you get settled in. I still have some friends living there as well. It really is a great community! 

[The-Fourth-Dimension]

1 hour ago, MFA-Painting-2022 said:

Hi @Michelle Santa Cruz, 

I studied mural painting and classical techniques in Mexico (UNAM) many years ago.

 

Really nice work! ?

[MFA-Painting-2022]

19 minutes ago, The-Fourth-Dimension said:

Really nice work! ?

Thanks @The-Fourth-Dimension! I’ve been so focused on figure that I left the abstract aside. I always really enjoyed it and wanted to go back to it which is why I’m going into an MFA. I read you’re living in Sac. I moved to Woodland when I left Mexico back in 2012. You might be interested in talking to Maceo Montoya. He’s a Chicano artist doing murals in the area. He might be able to give you insight into programs concerning Chicano art. Good luck with all your applications! I have a mural in Davis if you’re ever around there. It’s at Motown Barbershop and another one in Woodland at Four-Wheel Campers. I miss living in Cali but things are getting dicy there!

Edited January 25, 2022 by MFA-Painting-2022

[katfude5]

On 1/22/2022 at 9:27 PM, The-Fourth-Dimension said:

YUUUUUP! Because you guys posted these, I decided to just give my applications a once over cuz you both made me paranoid. LO AND BEHOLD... friggin, my San Diego State University LOR's had not been sent!!! I panicked and hit the resend thing, then I hit up my recommenders and asked what's up, and they never even got the requests. Or, they did, but they went to the "round file," right off.

CRAP!!! I had to remind the ladies who were writing my LOR's to check their emails again because I resent the requests.

SDSU utilizes this deal called "Interfolio" for their admissions process. It's disjointed, bizarre, and clunky, unlike the UC and Stanford things which are moar efficient and easy. A couple emails I got from Interfolio were flagged in my MacMail on my MacBook, for some reason. I had to tell it to send stuff from Interfolio to my inbox. Outlook flagged Interfolio, as well.

I wrote the program to tell them what time it was. I hope that's okay.

So lame.

Thank you for the heads up Katfude and SC. That's why I love this forum. I did some portraits of you both as thanks.

Anyone else have Interfolio problems???

From what I've read on previous years FOF's, and from my own experience, this weekend is when denials of admission have gone out for some of the U.C.'s, and next week is when interview invites start showing up in our emails.

 

C'MON!!! ??

 

This very much lightened my mood and made me laugh, so thank you for that  So glad to have helped, it's such a bummer when their clunky technology makes it extra difficult to apply.

[The-Fourth-Dimension]

3 hours ago, MFA-Painting-2022 said:

Thanks @The-Fourth-Dimension! I’ve been so focused on figure that I left the abstract aside. I always really enjoyed it and wanted to go back to it which is why I’m going into an MFA. I read you’re living in Sac. I moved to Woodland when I left Mexico back in 2012. You might be interested in talking to Maceo Montoya. He’s a Chicano artist doing murals in the area. He might be able to give you insight into programs concerning Chicano art. Good luck with all your applications! I have a mural in Davis if you’re ever around there. It’s at Motown Barbershop and another one in Woodland at Four-Wheel Campers. I miss living in Cali but things are getting dicy there!

So nice to hear from Raza going for the MFA! We really need more of us doing this. I've been private messaging with another homegirl on the forums here who is doing her MFA and is also really good. She's not Mexican/Chicano, but her culture has so much in common with us.

Woodland is real nice! I did a commissioned painting for the Mayor of Woodland City Council Member, Art Pimantel back in 2014.

I know Maceo!!! ? You didn't go to the bottom of the webpage in my signature? There's a whole video of me and Maceo and his brother and the Royal Chicano Air Force and Chicano Park getting awarded for our Chicano art at the Leland Stanford Mansion. Maceo's dad José and my dad Arturo were friends back in the early days of the movimiento and the Royal Chicano Air Force. My dad taught agriculture and Chicano Studies at Deganawidah-Quetzalcoatl University at Davis, José taught arte there before he went over to CSUS. Maceo's uncle, Malaquias, taught Chicano Studies, over at UC Davis. I still do arte with Esteban Villa who created the RCAF with Maceo's dad.

Back in the day the Chicanos all got into being professors and working in education in order to elevate and maintain our cultura that the White supremacists in and out of the art world were trying to ignore and destroy. People like the Montoya's, and Villa's and Orozco's and the RCAF, and my father made sure that MEChA became strong and we put our people in places of learning. We have to keep it going and be strong, as well.

Yeah, things are not so good here in Califas. It's getting impossible to afford anything. Forget about being a homeowner. Everyone from all the other states and countries bought up and gentrified all the land here in the mid aughts, priced it up, and sold it back to us like we're a bunch of pendejos acting like we're investors about to get rich. Plus, the ghetto-lyfe attitude is everywhere and people are totally entitled ready to get mad at each other at the drop of a hat and start fighting. I'm not exaggerating.

My little Chicano neighborhood here in Alkali Flat was nice when I moved up here 5 years ago from San Diego. They put in a homeless camp right across the street from my apartments a few years back and filled it with homeless people from other states who decided to come out to Califas and live here because we're better to homeless people than other states. I feel for them, but now my friends with familia won't bring their little kids to my house to play anymore because people shoot meth right outside my building.

I can't walk out of my house without being harassed for change from grown men. I usually live in Chicano Varrios because you don't really have to deal with that sort of thing, but times have changed. Sacra is very terrible now and I can't wait to move far away from here back to Southern Califas near the border with Mexico and the beach.

It's not like ALL of Califas is like that, just most of it, but you won't see it on the news enough to make a difference. Every year that Silicon Valley keeps inviting cheap slave-labor to "innovate" and make Califas less livable, more expensive, more dangerous, and less family friendly for those of us that have always been here in Aztlan. 

The White supremacists are definitely making a big-time comeback since the Orange Nazi was president. I've been told to "GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM" on numerous occasions enough that it wouldn't feel abnormal for that to happen to me.

It's still not as bad as the South or Midwest Estados Unidos, tho, for the most part.

Do you have links to pictures of your murales??? I'll drive out there to Davis and check them out!

[shivbat]

Ugh, you know when you get an email from a school and you think it’s an interview/decision or something, but it’s just a reminder that your stuff is STILL in review?? I hate it haha.

[recyclable]

Hey y'all, just got an interview request for University of Oregon's funded MFA in Art, anyone else here apply there?

[HJAn]

On 1/24/2022 at 2:20 PM, recyclable said:

FRIENDS! I just got an interview request for the Northwestern University MFA (via email, appears to have gone out to multiple folks as addressed to "undisclosed recipients")!!!

Wow congrats!

I applied to Northwestern as well, but haven't received anything. If I haven't gotten a rejection yet, I'm wondering if I should remain hopeful..(?)

Side note: I did get interview requests from SAIC and Tufts SMFA for sculpture.

One thing I haven't been able to find is SMFA's class size or acceptance rate on their website. Just wondering if anyone here might know.

[English Breakfast]

On 1/24/2022 at 1:20 PM, recyclable said:

FRIENDS! I just got an interview request for the Northwestern University MFA (via email, appears to have gone out to multiple folks as addressed to "undisclosed recipients")!!!

This is so exciting!!!! Let us know how the interview goes!!!

Maybe my interview mail is just a little/lot late ?? ?? or maybe waitlist! Still hopin!

  

34 minutes ago, HJAn said:

Wow congrats!

I applied to Northwestern as well, but haven't received anything. If I haven't gotten a rejection yet, I'm wondering if I should remain hopeful..(?)

Side note: I did get interview requests from SAIC and Tufts SMFA for sculpture.

One thing I haven't been able to find is SMFA's class size or acceptance rate on their website. Just wondering if anyone here might know.

Same Boat! let's stay hopeful ❤️❤️ 

Edited January 25, 2022 by English Breakfast

[HJAn]

23 hours ago, English Breakfast said:

This is so exciting!!!! Let us know how the interview goes!!!

Maybe my interview mail is just a little/lot late ?? ?? or maybe waitlist! Still hopin!

  

Same Boat! let's stay hopeful ❤️❤️ 

ahhh.. just got rejected from Northwestern ?

[recyclable]

35 minutes ago, HJAn said:

ahhh.. just got rejected from Northwestern ?

noooo ❤️ sending all the good things ❤️

[HJAn]

3 minutes ago, recyclable said:

noooo ❤️ sending all the good things ❤️

Thank you~ Good luck on your interview!!

[English Breakfast]

58 minutes ago, HJAn said:

ahhh.. just got rejected from Northwestern ?

Me too bud  A little broken-hearted but maybe it just wasn't the right fit for us.

[HJAn]

1 minute ago, English Breakfast said:

Me too bud  A little broken-hearted but maybe it just wasn't the right fit for us.

Sorry to hear that. I knew it was a long shot since their class size is so small, but still rejection hurts lol ?

 

Side note: Anyone's heard from UPenn? seems like in the past forums UPenn interview come out around this time as well.

[The-Fourth-Dimension]

On 1/24/2022 at 3:28 PM, MFA-Painting-2022 said:

I can’t upload the others because they’re more than 500kb.

The Grad Cafe sux for data hosting. If you want to add images of your artwork to the forum you have to first post them to a site that will host the pix, then add the image as a URL to hotlink them from the host site to The Grad Cafe. It workz for animated gifs, as well.

A good site for that is imgbb.com because you don't need to give any personal info and you can use a burner email account from temp-mail.org to give them as a contact. Just sign up and start posting the hostings.

It's really easy. Plz see instructions below in my gif with our boi Speedy Gonzales.

 

Edited January 26, 2022 by The-Fourth-Dimension
Spinnin Jacksons

[slickjaketheruler]

Is anyone getting paranoid by not hearing back from any schools? I feel like I’m checking my email every 30 minutes.

[shivbat]

8 minutes ago, slickjaketheruler said:

Is anyone getting paranoid by not hearing back from any schools? I feel like I’m checking my email every 30 minutes.

Yes same!! Checking portals constantly too even though I know I'd probably get an email first. Picking up spam calls just in case it's an admissions office. Going insane here haha.

[The-Fourth-Dimension]

22 minutes ago, slickjaketheruler said:

Is anyone getting paranoid by not hearing back from any schools? I feel like I’m checking my email every 30 minutes.

Yes, dood. For real. I keep rotating from the application management sites where your decisions are given, to my inbox, to The Grad Cafe. It's Wednesday. If you look back at the FOF's from last year till 2018, the schools start sending out stuff starting from tonight. 

So, yeah... Nerves in full-effect fasho!

[Strawberrycat]

27 minutes ago, shivbat said:

Yes same!! Checking portals constantly too even though I know I'd probably get an email first. Picking up spam calls just in case it's an admissions office. Going insane here haha.

The spam calls are killing me. ? They're in full force this week and it is not the timing for it, haha. 

[recyclable]

51 minutes ago, Strawberrycat said:

The spam calls are killing me. ? They're in full force this week and it is not the timing for it, haha. 

Same! I installed an app that blocks spam calls, I don't want to sound like product placement so I'll leave name off here, but I would 10/10 recommend!

[MFA-Painting-2022]

On 1/24/2022 at 11:06 PM, The-Fourth-Dimension said:

So nice to hear from Raza going for the MFA! We really need more of us doing this. I've been private messaging with another homegirl on the forums here who is doing her MFA and is also really good. She's not Mexican/Chicano, but her culture has so much in common with us.

Woodland is real nice! I did a commissioned painting for the Mayor of Woodland City Council Member, Art Pimantel back in 2014.

I know Maceo!!! ? You didn't go to the bottom of the webpage in my signature? There's a whole video of me and Maceo and his brother and the Royal Chicano Air Force and Chicano Park getting awarded for our Chicano art at the Leland Stanford Mansion. Maceo's dad José and my dad Arturo were friends back in the early days of the movimiento and the Royal Chicano Air Force. My dad taught agriculture and Chicano Studies at Deganawidah-Quetzalcoatl University at Davis, José taught arte there before he went over to CSUS. Maceo's uncle, Malaquias, taught Chicano Studies, over at UC Davis. I still do arte with Esteban Villa who created the RCAF with Maceo's dad.

Back in the day the Chicanos all got into being professors and working in education in order to elevate and maintain our cultura that the White supremacists in and out of the art world were trying to ignore and destroy. People like the Montoya's, and Villa's and Orozco's and the RCAF, and my father made sure that MEChA became strong and we put our people in places of learning. We have to keep it going and be strong, as well.

Yeah, things are not so good here in Califas. It's getting impossible to afford anything. Forget about being a homeowner. Everyone from all the other states and countries bought up and gentrified all the land here in the mid aughts, priced it up, and sold it back to us like we're a bunch of pendejos acting like we're investors about to get rich. Plus, the ghetto-lyfe attitude is everywhere and people are totally entitled ready to get mad at each other at the drop of a hat and start fighting. I'm not exaggerating.

My little Chicano neighborhood here in Alkali Flat was nice when I moved up here 5 years ago from San Diego. They put in a homeless camp right across the street from my apartments a few years back and filled it with homeless people from other states who decided to come out to Califas and live here because we're better to homeless people than other states. I feel for them, but now my friends with familia won't bring their little kids to my house to play anymore because people shoot meth right outside my building.

I can't walk out of my house without being harassed for change from grown men. I usually live in Chicano Varrios because you don't really have to deal with that sort of thing, but times have changed. Sacra is very terrible now and I can't wait to move far away from here back to Southern Califas near the border with Mexico and the beach.

It's not like ALL of Califas is like that, just most of it, but you won't see it on the news enough to make a difference. Every year that Silicon Valley keeps inviting cheap slave-labor to "innovate" and make Califas less livable, more expensive, more dangerous, and less family friendly for those of us that have always been here in Aztlan. 

The White supremacists are definitely making a big-time comeback since the Orange Nazi was president. I've been told to "GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM" on numerous occasions enough that it wouldn't feel abnormal for that to happen to me.

It's still not as bad as the South or Midwest Estados Unidos, tho, for the most part.

Do you have links to pictures of your murales??? I'll drive out there to Davis and check them out!

It’s really cool that you know Maceo. He put me in touch with the people for the mural in Woodland. Nice guy. Never met his dad but I heard good things about him within the community. I saw that you wrote an explanation of how to upload images, thanks! I’ll check it out. I’ll try uploading something in the next few days. I’ve been working a lot so I’m exhausted right now and the idea of dealing with inefficient technology is kind of off-putting. The Chicano community has always had a rich culture and Maceo was doing some good work in Woodland Community College, I don’t know if he’s still there. Hope your applications are going well ✌?

[MFA-Painting-2022]

5 hours ago, The-Fourth-Dimension said:

The Grad Cafe sux for data hosting. If you want to add images of your artwork to the forum you have to first post them to a site that will host the pix, then add the image as a URL to hotlink them from the host site to The Grad Cafe. It workz for animated gifs, as well.

A good site for that is imgbb.com because you don't need to give any personal info and you can use a burner email account from temp-mail.org to give them as a contact. Just sign up and start posting the hostings.

It's really easy. Plz see instructions below in my gif with our boi Speedy Gonzales.

 

Thanks! I’ll try uploading some on Friday. I appreciate the gif

[Forms Without Formula]

Anyone else apply to Hunter this year? It's the only school I applied to and I'm going crazy waiting, seems like their interview requests come out in mid February and decisions in mid March but I don't know how I'm gonna wait any longer!