Two years of making and teaching: Inside UIC’s Master of Fine Arts program

For the last two years, the eight students set to graduate this spring from UIC's master's degree in fine arts program have painted, filmed, built and created over countless hours in their studios above UIC Gallery 400.

The culmination of their program will be an exhibition of their artwork, "Short Story Long: MFA Thesis Show," at the gallery through May 9. An opening reception will be held April 17 from 6 to 9 p.m.

When the students, who include international artists from as far away as Iran and China, weren't making art in their UIC-provided studio space or attending classes, they were teaching art to undergraduates.

Listen to story summary.

Each year, the program in the School of Art and Art History selects about eight students from a pool of between 150 and 200 applicants, and the number of applicants has been rising, said Nate Young, associate professor and the school's director of graduate studies.

The MFA program is not discipline-specific; it's not all about painting or sculpture or drawing. Students can experiment across media in line with their ideas, fostering creativity and exploration. Some have already exhibited their work in galleries in the United States and internationally, but that's not a prerequisite.

"We're not looking for a student who is a finished professional," said Young. "We're looking for a student who has a body of work that they've been thinking through and working on but are at a turning point in their professional practice where they want to refine their ideas."

Many students are pulled to UIC's MFA program because it is the only program in the city where graduates leave with teaching experience - a full year of it. And many of them plan to continue teaching after they graduate.

MFA student Elias Mendel (right) discusses his artwork with Dan Peterman, professor of art, in Mendel's studio. "Book of Correspondence" by MFA student Elias Mendel. MFA student Elias Mendel (left) speaks with undergraduate student Cho Sunah in his drawing class.

Photos: Martin Hernandez/UIC

Students as teachers

Elias Mendel, a second-year MFA student from London, England, considers himself an archivist, a teacher and an artist. His work examines his Jewish family's archives and uses old letters to teach others about their struggles during the Holocaust. He uses charcoal and ink, and even created a new font, to tell his family's story.

"I combined the text and overlayed it to speak to memory and loss," said Mendel. "New meaning is created from that."

Mendel said he sought out the UIC program because it is intellectually rigorous, allowed him to create across various media and required him to teach as well as create.

"The reason I came to this school was to teach as part of it, because you learn a lot," said Mendel. "I think it's how does the teaching help me in the MFA program? It's already changed my approach to drawing a lot."

Having access to his own large studio and communal spaces that foster collaboration have also been essential to his growth as an artist, he said.

"I have 24-hour access to my studio. It's bigger than some of the apartments I've lived in," said Mendel.

Leo Martin, a fourth-year undergraduate student in Mendel's drawing class, said he wants to eventually earn his credentials to become an art teacher himself. As an older student who returned to college, learning from a working artist like Mendel helped solidify his career choice, he said.

"I find having an MFA student as a teacher is beneficial to me because I can connect with them," said Martin. "The MFA students at UIC have a really good understanding of what it means to be a student here."

Visitors take in artwork by MFA student Claire Burke Dain in her studio. "In Transit" by MFA student Claire Burke Dain is displayed in her studio. MFA student Claire Burke Dain sits inside her studio.

Photos: Martin Hernandez/UIC

First learn, then teach

The program is designed to allow students like Claire Burke Dain to focus almost exclusively on attending classes and creating their own work during their first year. They also take pedagogy classes, shadow teachers and in the second year teach their own classes.

Burke Dain said she is a painter, yet much of her work incorporates collage. Her line-based art focuses on transportation and moments of motion.

"It's this inside feeling of memory and remembering things and then looking out at the world at the same time and traveling through it," said Burke. "I'm trying to encapsulate that kind of wistfulness."

The ideas she explored in her first year helped fuel her second.

"My first year, I experimented a lot, and I created a lot of work," she said. "I figured out what I wanted my concentration to be on in my second year."

One draw for Burke Dain and other students in the program is its cost. With the teaching stipend and financial assistance, students only pay about one semester's tuition, said Young. Plus, being at a public institution, the program costs far less than MFA degrees at private universities, which can run into the low six figures for a two-year program.

But there was one final kicker for Burke Dain - her admiration for the artists who teach and have taught in the program. The celebrated artist Kerry James Marshall, who Burke Dain has long admired, previously taught here. And current professors Deborah Stratman and Jennifer Reeder, who both work in filmmaking, have also been among her favorites.

"I've always thought of UIC as a place where I wanted to do my MFA," she said. "I always wanted to teach, so that was another big pull for me."

MFA student Michael Cunningham (right) discusses his sculptural instrument, "Bed," with Paul Dickinson, UIC lab specialist, moving image. MFA student Michael Cunningham discusses a class project with students in his undergraduate sculpture class.

Photos: Martin Hernandez/UIC

Cohort as community

Interdisciplinary artist and sculptor Michael Cunningham earned his bachelor's degree in English at UIC and fell in love with Chicago. As a result, UIC was his first choice for his MFA.

Cunningham has created large, sound-based interactive sculptures that look like xylophones. In the MFA thesis show, he'll invite visitors to participate in a collective tuning experiment with handmade instruments crafted from reclaimed materials.

Having access to large studios where he could create was important to him. His studio space is stuffed with big planks of wood, pieces of metal, acoustic and electric guitars and various types of amplifiers.

"What we have access to here is actually pretty incredible," said Cunningham.

What also sold him on UIC was the program's small size. Cunningham said the cohort is a tight-knit group that takes classes together. Having studios clustered in a single building creates a communal structure in which peers seek each other out for feedback, input and insights on their work.

"The intimacy of the program was very important to me," said Cunningham. "The people in my cohort I consider very good friends because we're small enough where we can all gather pretty often and we've all worked pretty hard to build that community."

Working with the faculty, which have their own connections to Chicago's larger artistic community, has been a positive experience, Cunningham said.

"Because we are a small cohort, they are really able to give us the attention that you really want when you are in an MFA program," he said. "I came in as one kind of maker, and I'm leaving as another kind of maker because I've been exposed to so many different new things."

In the undergraduate sculpture class Cunningham teaches, photography student Antoine Baldwin said Cunningham and other MFA students have set an example for him to follow. Now he's considering pursuing an MFA after graduating from UIC.

"It can open my eyes to the many things I can do," said Baldwin. "He's teaching me that everything around you is basically art."