We believe in making. In fact, we believe the things we make can change the world. Making things requires skill, dedication and vision. It means opening oneself up to possibility and embracing change and collaboration.
If you are driven to make things, you need access to exceptional studio spaces, cutting-edge technologies and passionate faculty/artists who will push and prod you to go beyond what you think you know. But it doesn’t end there. To do this effectively, you need to find a path—a career—that leads to a professionally sustainable future. New Paltz offers a graduate program that gives you access to immense opportunity, without sentencing you to a lifetime of debt. If you share this vision, then we believe in you.
Our MFA program embeds the best aspects of a vigorous studio practice within the context of a comprehensive liberal arts education. Our proximity to New York City, affordable tuition, numerous scholarship and assistantship opportunities and nationally recognized programs attract a broad variety of competitive and skilled graduate students from across the nation and around the world.
New Paltz is regularly listed as the number one public university in the nation for Metal MFA programs and consistently ranked among the region’s top 10 public universities overall. We take pride in fostering a learning community that engenders critical thinking and a profound appreciation for difference and dialogue.
Our studio spaces are housed in a state-of-the-art, 50,000-square-foot Fine Arts Building, a 25,000-square-foot painting and drawing facility and a 25,000-square-foot building dedicated to photography and graphic design. Our campus is also home to the Hudson Valley Additive Manufacturing Center, a world-class, design-driven 3D printing lab.
Sarah’s work engages digital design and manipulation through a series of structures and algorithms , but her end result is bringing the work back to the very real, very human form of clay. This provides a beautiful bridge of making processes across time.
Fall 2016 MFA Thesis exhibition:
Sarah Heitmeyer, And Then There’s You. 2016.
—Bryan Czibesz, Associate Professor of Ceramics
132 x 48 x 2 inches. Porcelain, glaze, and photographs. Slip cast tiles made from plaster molds cast around 3D printed plastic (PLA) models. Models were generated by processing photographs in Rhino and modeling them into tile blocks.
Sarah Heitmeyer ’16g
EMERGING ARTIST AWARD
National Council on the Education of Ceramic Arts, 2019. Group exhibitions: Garden (Feast) of Paradise, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA 2018
“For the exhibition, I wanted to create the experience of being in your own space or your own room, surrounded by the work, where you feel like you’re overlooking into a vast landscape, where you can just lose yourself into that water, that horizon line, that space.”
It’s a transformative process of taking a phenomenon from the natural world, translating it into the digital world, and recreating it in any way you can imagine.
It’s about capturing a moment that happened: the surface of the water, the perspective of the photographer and the reflection of light in that instant.
sarahheitmeyerceramics.com sarah_heitmeyer
Excerpted from Beautiful Bridge , in New Paltz Magazine. Read more about Sarah here: https://www.newpaltz.edu/magazinefall-2017/sarah-heitmeyer/
I pair digital- and craft-based techniques to infiltrate contemporary design and honor traditions of handmade ceramics. Patterns function as a vehicle through space, offering markers for perception and revealing a subliminal tendency to seek order and repetition. Creating patterns with computeraided design, mold making, and slip casting allow me to offer an experience that provides the viewer with a quiet, immense moment.
I never considered myself a computer person, and came in with pretty much zero experience in digital design. I had the good fortune of being around people at SUNY New Paltz who were willing to help me learn, and right away I started seeing how the 3D printers worked and how the technicians were processing builds. My work with 3D design and my work in ceramics quickly began to merge. I was focused on working with photographs of water. Using Rhino to process those images and print 3D molds and prototypes just opened up everything for me.
///Aaron Nelson, assistant professor of art, SUNY New Paltz: There’s an algorithmic modeling plug-in for Rhino that can scan a blackand-white image and generate an abstraction you can use to drive other geometry: the height of a point, the radius of a circle, the size of a sphere or the proximity of shapes to other shapes .
It’s a transformative process of taking a phenomenon from the natural world, translating it into the digital world, and recreating it in any way you can imagine. It’s a really novel process, and Sarah kind of had to invent it herself.
It was exciting for me to watch, a pretty amazing journey from where she started, with basically no experience, to showcasing her work in the gallery, in just about a year and a half.
www.newpaltz.edu/mfa
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Sarah Heitmeyer
and find resonance with the tide.
Who do you see as your main audience? And what services do you see yourselves providing?
Brian: Our goal has always been to reach a broader audience, to make connections through different media and mind-sets. While we work endlessly to connect metalsmithing and jewelry-making with science, history, art, politics and the world around us, our strongest supporters have been jewelers from all corners of the world.
Erin: It seems that the most important service we provide is as a conduit or connector for the larger jewelry and metalsmithing community. We bring together local and international artists. We share resources and ideas. We educate in the classroom and the gallery. The tools and equipment on site are just one part of a much larger experience. We exist to further a lot of different groups and individuals.
How do you manage the competing demands of making work, renting studio spaces, and running classes, workshops and exhibitions?
Brian: It takes us both of a tremendous amount of effort and time to keep everything running smoothly. We are almost always working on BKMW-related projects, and as of the last few years we have had hardly any time to work on our own work. We’ve recently taken on some help, which has been great, but also comes with additional responsibilities. It’s not easy, but if you just wake up each day and work harder each day, eventually you die!
Erin: Laughing helps. I just read what Brian wrote and it made me laugh until I was crying. Which is really how we do this. We work together, push each other, take care of each other, and still keep smiling. This hasn’t been easy, but it has been worth it, and doing this together makes it possible.
The business is up and running for years now— what have you learned in that time about running a center for metal artists?
Do you encourage collaborations with colleges, other organizations or galleries near you? If so, how?
Erin: Collaborations are really at the core of our value system. We created a shared studio space to facilitate just this occurrence. We work with other galleries to bring in artists for lectures. We offer classes in conjunction with other institutions. New York City is a living university, and to not take advantage of this wealth of resources would be such a loss. In this day and age, people come to expect varied crosspollinations and unexpected hybrids. This fluidity is interesting and should be encouraged. In a larger sense, this idea is a way of embracing ongoing education—that there is always more to learn from other ways of thinking, other ways of making.
Brian: We’ve learned that we don’t know much about anything and that you need to ask people questions—all the time. Almost every day we learn something new, and every day we absorb this new information and grow.
Erin: Running a business should be as creative and dynamic an experience as making art. That no one person can or should do everything, and that utilizing your resources and hiring professionals is vital. That sharing experiences with others in the field is necessary to learn and grow. Nothing is permanently stable and that as long as you are okay with constant change, you can survive the ride.
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My work has always been influenced by my own migration to the U.S., and that has allowed me now to look outside of myself, to the world’s immigrants, to hear their hopes, difficulties and dreams.
My current project is to promote empathy with immigrants, and have their outlooks and feelings influence my own work.
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Zahra Nazari ’14g
ZAHRA NAZARI GREW UP IN HAMEDAN, IRAN, AND NOW LIVES AND WORKS IN NEW YORK CITY. THROUGH PAINTING AND INSTALLATION, SHE EXPLORES SUCH ISSUES AS THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT, IMMIGRATION AND THE LIMINAL IDENTITY OF BEING PULLED BETWEEN TWO CULTURES.
Q WHAT INSPIRES YOU, AND WHAT DO YOU EXPLORE IN YOUR WORK?
A My environment has always been the major inspiration for me. Hamedan, the city where I grew up in Iran, has especially been an influence on my work. Hamedan contains an architectural dichotomy that impacted my imagination. It is a city that has existed for a millennium, and there I saw this modern city flourishing beside archeological sites of historical significance. In my youth, I became fascinated by the way that cities’ urban structures affect, connect, and separate its inhabitants.
Later, upon immigrating to the United States, I developed an evolving identity as an immigrant, which also informed my work beyond physical space. I explore human relation, emotion and connection with the built environment. Architecture, aerial views and cities, in general, are the most dominant elements in my work.
Q ARE THERE INVESTIGATIONS ABOUT CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN YOUR WORK AS WELL? IF SO, WHAT QUESTIONS ARE YOU TRYING TO ANSWER, OR WHAT ANSWERS ARE YOU HOPING TO PROVIDE?
A Immigration and its psychological impact are what I am currently exploring in my work. People shape new identities as immigrants by leaving the comfort zones of their home countries and by the way they are perceived, as well as how they perceive others. Memories of home start to fade and after a while you lose your sense of belonging to any place. The immigrant, then, forms an identity as an outsider at all times, in all places. I explore portraying this fragmented psyche in my work’s brushstrokes and forms.
Excerpted from Zahra Nazari: Exploring Identity in Abstractions Inspired by Architecture by Celeste Kaufman. Read Celeste’s full interview with Zahra here: https://hamptonsarthub.com/2018/07/25/artists-zahra-nazari-exploring-identityin-abstractions-inspired-by-architecture/
ZAHRA NAZARI IS LIVING PROOF OF ART’S POWER TO SPEAK TO PEOPLE ACROSS BORDERS AND CULTURES.
Since graduating she has participated in: the AIM Program, Bronx Museum, NY; the Immigrant Mentoring Artist Program at the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), NY; artist residencies at Cooper Union, NY, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), MA, Tao Hua Tan, China, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), VA, the Wassaic Project, NY, and Sculpture Space in Utica, NY. zahranazari.com zahranazari
Zahra Nazari
Zahra Nazari. Melody of the Oculus , Federal Hall, acrylic on canvas, 80 x 150 inches, 2017
As SUNY New Paltz launches a new MFA track in Photography & Related Media, Professor Emeritus François Deschamps caught up with his former student Greta Pratt ’05g, now a professor of photography at Old Dominion University, to talk about teaching, making, seeing, and the past, present and future of the medium.
Deschamps: Hi Greta, it’s great to have an opportunity to talk with you after all these years. You have had such an extraordinary career: publishing an important book with Steidl, being included in a show at Mass MoCA and teaching as a tenured professor. And in the midst of all that, you have been able to create exciting new work—your series “The Wavers,” “The Azalea Trail Maids,” and now most recently your work about the American West. Can you describe how you have moved through the trajectory of your career and how you have come upon some of your great projects?
Pratt: For me one project always seems to lead to the next. I find that the things I learn and discover from working through the questions and ideas raised by one body of work inevitably create new questions and ideas that I want to pursue. Overall my work is about the production and consumption of myth. This is a personal and universal topic as myth creates identity. I keep finding more layers to peel back.
Deschamps: I think in your work you use imagery, cameras and technology as a transparent medium. In that dialectic that considers photographs as “windows or mirrors,” your work creates windows into cultural elements of American society.
Pratt: That is one way to put it. I think of it as observational photography— what comes back is the subject’s truth. My decision to put the frame here can mean one thing, putting it over there means another: it’s my observation.
Deschamps: There is also printing manipulation. They have a look to them.
Pratt: Yes, it’s a process—“The Wavers,” took a year and a half of photographing and looking before the “look” began to emerge. The first few people I photographed were in the bright sun, but after looking at them I began to figure out that I wanted another background. I started doing them on slightly cloudy, even rainy days. I carried a studio light and an umbrella with me (which was always blowing over because of the weather), and shot them from a little bit below because I wanted the subjects to be important.
Deschamps: What attracted you to photography in the first place? How did your early experience shape your path in the field?
Pratt: I started studying photography when I was about 14. My dad was a hobby photographer, and we had many photo books around the house that I spent a lot of time with. In Minneapolis, where I went to high school, there was this special program which offered film and photography courses. I just loved it.
Deschamps: What made you decide to get your MFA at SUNY New Paltz?
Pratt: I had been working on this Using History project for eight years and I didn’t know where to go with it. I needed some guidance, some other eyes. I thought grad study at New Paltz was the place to do that.
Deschamps: You’ve been at Old Dominion University for 11 years now, I believe. Did you go straight to teaching after graduating from New Paltz?
Pratt: Yes, before I started at Old Dominion, I taught at Rockland [County Community College] for two years. I taught the history of photography, which was one of the best things I’ve ever done. It was tough at the time because I was spending 20 hours a week to prepare for a one hour lecture, but I learned so much about photography and about myself as a photographer.
Deschamps: Teaching can give you a completely different perspective on the field. What trends in photography are you paying attention to right now, and how do you see young photographers in your classes changing in response?
Pratt: I think that everybody has to become a little more multimedia. New technologies, and new ways of seeing, have been added to the tool kit—you have to have history, criticism, the skill to make a good photo, and the ability to meet
Greta Pratt ’05g
What does it mean to be an American? While citizens of other nations find solidarity in shared ethnicity, religion, or history, the United States binds its people together through a shared set of symbols, ideals and mythologies. When I first saw the Wavers, dressed in Statue of Liberty costumes, waving and dancing on the street corner, I was drawn to the spectacle. But after talking to them and hearing their stories it became important to me to photograph them. When I make their portrait, I ask them to pose as themselves and not as an employee. I photograph them when and where they are working and use a slightly low angle and studio lighting to give them importance and dignity. In today’s political climate the United States borders are being closed to immigrants lured by the promise of the American dream but these people are no longer immigrants. They are instead our own people, Americans for whom the hopes symbolized by Lady Liberty have yet to fully materialize.
GRETA PRATT is American photographer concerned with issues of national identity and American myth. Pratt is the author of three monographs, The Wavers (Blue Sky Books 2014), Using History (Steidl, 2005) and In Search of the Corn Queen (National Museum of American Art, 1994). Pratt’s work is included in major public and private collections and has been shown in Art in America, New York Times Sunday Magazine and The New Yorker along with numerous books and catalogs nationally as well as internationally. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and is a recipient of a New Jersey State Arts Council Grant.
François Deschamps
Recently retired from SUNY New Paltz, but still very active in our MFA community, FRAN Ç OIS DESCHAMPS taught photography and related media for 40 years. He has received two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as three artists’ fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts. In 2010 he was awarded a Senior Research Fulbright grant to Mali and in June 2016 his work was presented at Fotofestiwal in Lodz, Poland. He received a research/teaching Fulbright Scholarship to Prague for Spring 2018.
francoisdeschamps.net
Photo-Rapide is an ongoing collaborative photographic project that creates in images a human family from many cultural and geographical spaces. I produce a portrait on the spot with a small digital printer. I think of the subjects as my collaborators or clients whom I must please. They pick the image they like—not always my choice—and then choose from a selection of card “frames” I made based on cultural themes. This collaboration is completed by photographing the person holding the framed image that I give them. To date I have worked in Mali, Senegal, Peru, Canada, Poland, and various geographic/cultural centers in the US such as Acadia, Maine, Florida, and inner city Newburgh, New York.
people and do research on your subjects. And then you have to understand how to print them, how to diffuse them digitally on different platforms, how to edit a body of work. But I should ask you the same question – you’ve been teaching at New Paltz for 40 years! What changes have you seen in photography and in your students?
Deschamps: Isn’t that crazy? Well, when I came to New Paltz there was no color lab. We only worked with black and white negative film. Slowly, we started getting sophisticated and safe color processing, and building a large stock of cameras. And then of course, digital came along, which, frankly, it took me a while to embrace. But I realized that for making books, working digitally is absolutely amazing. I have also noticed that the students have become much savvier. They’re serious, work very hard, and are deeply engaged. It’s quite extraordinary.
Pratt: My work is about American culture, but I see that your work in your series Photo-Rapide touches on the idea of documenting multiple, diverse cultures. Can you tell me about your approach?
Deschamps: I think culture can be documented exceptionally well with photography. I was raised bilingually and started traveling when I was 11 years old, and I’ve never stopped. The breakthroughs with Photo-Rapide came when I was on a Fulbright in Mali, West Africa, in 2010.
West Africans notoriously do not want to be photographed given their negative experience with the colonialist past. I came up with the idea of traveling with a portable printer to make prints to give away on the spot. At first, I put them in generic frames, but it later occurred to me to make frames that have something to do with Malian culture. This was a breakthrough. I’ve taken this project on the road, working in the Peruvian Amazon jungle, the Czech Republic, Poland, Senegal, and also in various cultural settings in North America, such as Louisiana, central Florida, inner city Newburgh, New York, and the Canadian Maritimes.
Pratt: How do you approach people when you land in a place?
Deschamps: I become somewhat ballsy and approach people saying, “would you like a photograph for free?” I get some rejections. But once people saw the photographs being given away, I can have lines of people waiting for their photo. I see this kind of activity as being in the realm of relational aesthetics, the idea that the relationship is an important part of the art.
Pratt: Absolutely. The relationships are so important.
Deschamps: I was actually thinking back to your time in the grad program, when the curator Nato Thompson came as a visiting speaker. He saw your body of work on the Lincolns, and I think that helped you to get included in that wonderful show at Mass MoCA.
Pratt: Yes, it was amazing—being so close to NYC, I remember we used to have artists and critics on campus often, but he and I kept in touch after he visited our department. That show was huge for me.
Deschamps: Do you have any advice for current grads who are looking towards a future in higher education?
Pratt: I would say for anybody that’s just starting out is that you have to work much harder than you think, and it might take a lot longer than you think. You have to put your everything into your work and research.
Deschamps: Right.
Pratt: Well François, it's been great talking with you and catching up. I'm headed to my class. Be well, and all the best.
Deschamps: You too, Greta. Keep looking and thinking.
M I S + K A F T M E N E O A R M I S + K A F T M E N E O A R
Paul John ’12g
the conceptualization + realization of both limited + open edition prints or publications, events + exhibitions. Conceived as a way to relieve economic burden from artists while providing them a platform for publication, our belief is that artists’ books + publications are perhaps the most democratic + socially responsible media available in the contemporary art market .
Endless Editions is a publishing + curatorial initiative founded in 2014. Endless Editions’ mission is to produce + disseminate books or prints by emerging artists, irrespective of age, gender identity, creed or race. The imprint works primarily with artists who have been historica lly underrepresented in the gallery system or art market, and supports them through
Endless Editions operates a Risograph print studio at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop in Manhattan and also maintains an active programming schedule around NYC + internationally.
Over the course of the past four years, Endless Editions has published over 70 titles by 60 artists. Our projects are held in the collections of the MoMA Library; the New York Public Library; the Whitney Museum of American Art; and the Thomas J. Watson Library at the MET, and others. Endless Editions has organized over 20 exhibitions; established a residency program, The Copy Shop Residency, which has hosted numerous artists from around the world; and held educational seminars at The MET; New Museum of Contemporary Art; MoMA; Queens Museum of the Arts; Pioneer Works; the School of Visual Arts; Kunsthall of Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway; Oppland Kunstsenter, Lillehammer, Norway; The Royal Academy of Art, Stockholm, Sweden; and the Museum of Arts and Design.
Endless Editions operated an exhibition space in Chinatown for nine months in 2015-2016 where we curated six exhibitions, and which was visited by over 1,200 people.
In 2016, the first Endless Biennial opened in December, hosting over 120 different artists from twelve different countries, with an attendance of over 1,000 visitors.
Mycelial Network
Quickly I began to wonder // How can a mushroom teach us to collaborate? // And how are mushrooms a metaphor for community?
These questions, experiments and conversations in the community led to Mushroom Shed, a 10-year interdisciplinary educational space for learning about art and the environment. Mushroom Shed, located in a designated historic district in downtown New Paltz, is a collaborative effort to share, gather, connect and grow as a community. We host gatherings every month that include workshops, lectures, how-to growing demonstrations, dinners and more. The construction of the shed, which is modeled after a community smokehouse built in the 1700s on Historic Huguneot Street, was completed in May 2019.
Amanda Heidel ’18g
Mushroom Shed started from my interest in repurposing waste materials, which led to conversations with local business owners to figure out a way to repurpose them. At the same time, I developed a growing interest in mycology, specifically on understanding the entire lifecycle of a mushroom. While studying at SUNY, I worked with mycologist Hon Ho in the biology department, and learned how to grow mushrooms from the beginning stages. My discovery was that the lifecycle of a mushroom is a beautiful model for collaboration, which became the focus of my graduate research.
“Making successful community-based art requires more than just a creative vision, it demands a truly egalitarian process of consultation and collaboration. Amanda's success came from her ability to build reciprocal alliances and forge trust. This is a skill that all artists interested in social practice need to have in their toolkit.”
—Matthew Friday, MFA Coordinator SUNY New Paltz
Excerpted from the SUNY New Paltz News Hub, “MFA student receives inaugural Art & Social Justice Award.” Read more about Mushroom Shed here: https://hudsonvalleyone.com/2019/05/07/ mushroom-shed-festival-on-may-10-brings-community-mushroomgardening-to-huguenot-street/
www.newpaltz.edu/mfa
amandaheidelart • Follow New Paltz, New York
amandaheidelart Reached a huge milestone last night–Mushroom Farm got approved at the public hearing! The project will be durational and span over a period of 10 years. So excited to see what happens from here!
Amanda Heidel ’18g (Sculpture) is the first-ever recipient of the Patricia Leavy Award for Art and Social Justice, a new recognition for SUNY New Paltz students using creative and artistic expression as a means of conducting research.
“Amanda’s community-based research into environmental sustainability addresses health not just as an individual issue, but as a cultural phenomenon that all of us need to collectively work towards.”—Matthew Friday, SUNY New Paltz MFA Coordinator
SUNY New Paltz is situated in the heart of New York’s historic Hudson Valley region, just 90 minutes north of New York City and its unparalleled artistic , educational and professional opportunities.
Called “the new Brooklyn” by the New York Times, the Hudson Valley is home to multiple emergent and thriving creative communities (Search for “Beacon,” “Kingston,” “New Paltz,” “Rhinebeck,” to start), a broad variety of cultural institutions and artists, and some of the best hiking, climbing, biking and camping the Northeast has to offer. The striking vistas of the Shawangunk and Catskill Mountain ranges have inspired countless artists through time.
New Paltz is a vibrant, idyllic community with a legacy of being at the forefront of environmental and social justice movements. The College holds as a core institutional value the creation of a campus environment that is inclusive and respectful of national, racial, ethnic, class, gender and sexual diversity.
Quality &Affordability.
As a proud member of the State Univeristy of New York, the largest public school system in America, SUNY New Paltz is guided by the conviction that education is a fundamental element of personal growth and civil society, that must be accessible to all regardless of background or privilege. The data-driven Social Mobility Index has rated SUNY New Paltz in the top 3% nationwide in helping our students climb the socio-economic ladder.
Our MFA is recognized as offering one of the best combinations of quality and affordability anywhere on the East Coast.
All non-resident and international students receive our MFA scholarship allowing them to pay our extremely low in-state public tuition rates. Non-resident students are granted the MFA scholarship for one year, during which time they can apply for New York State residency to continue to receive the in-state tuition rate. International students automatically receive the MFA Scholarship for two years without applying for New York State residency. A number of competitive graduate teaching assistantships are available, with compensation averaging roughly $5,000 per semester in combined tuition waivers and stipends. All incoming students are eligible for assistantships and approximately 90% of all students receive an assistantship during their MFA. Additional funding is available to MFA students to support research, materials purchases and attendance at conferences, residencies and exhibitions.
“NYCJW is important because it will bring together the often disparate voices of the NYC jewelry communities, and will offer an opportunity for conversations between all types of jewelry,” said Jonathan Wahl ’94g (Metal), director of the Jewelry Center at the 92nd Street Y who sits on the NYCJW advisory board. Wahl says his New Paltz education “was invaluable and prepared me to become the artist I am today. The use of craft as a medium for critical commentary shaped the way I think about jewelry and the decorative arts.”
Matthew Friday GRADUATE COORDINATOR AND ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF CRITICAL STUDIES
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www.newpaltz.edu/graduate
Education is never just an encounter between an individual and a teacher, it is always a public act and one that, through the relations that it creates, engenders new publics. At SUNY New Paltz we envision that teaching art means embracing all aspects of a person’s being—social, physical, aesthetic, ethical and epistemological. The challenge to acquire dispositional attunement and map out a sustainable career path are just as important as the cultivation of skills. This is why we offer classes like Artist’s Survival Skills that focus on career objectives and create exhibition opportunities like the NYC Jewelry Week and the Brooklyn Biennial.
Matthew Friday is an educator, writer and transdisciplinary artist whose research focuses on the development of apparatuses and systems that examine and provoke new political ecologies. Over the past few years, Matthew Friday has spoken internationally about ecology, aesthetics and politics at venues such as NYU, the Rubin Foundation and Kunsthal Aarhus (Denmark). His essays have appeared in October, The Journal of Modern Craft, The Journal Aesthetics and Protest, The Brooklyn Rail and Art Journal.
Working both collectively and individually, Matthew Friday’s researchbased projects have taken up issues of urban ecology, watershed remediation and the history and future of organized labor. He is an active member of the ecosystem research and design collective SPURSE. He has exhibited at a number of venues including the Wave Hill, Spaces (Cleveland), MassMOCA, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Grand Arts, White Columns, the Kitchen, Bemis Art Center, Kunsthal Aarhus and the BMW Guggenheim LAB. His work has been reviewed in October, the New Art Examiner, Dwell and Art Papers and has been included in several catalogs including The Interventionists (MassMOCA) and Experimental Geography (Creative Time/ Independent Curators International). Friday’s work has been supported with a number of grants including the New York Federation for the Arts and the Ohio Arts Initiative. Matthew Friday studied at the Whitney Independent Study Program and earned his MFA from Indiana State University. www.matthewfriday.net www.spurse.org
New Paltz
Metal student exhibition, denizen, in the historic Hotel Chelsea as part of the New York City Jewelry Week (NYCJW) 2018.
Visiting Artist Series.
Every year our Student Art Alliance brings a dozen or so visiting artists, historians, curators, collectors and critics to present their ideas and conduct individual critiques with graduate students. These visiting speakers provide unparalleled opportunities to expand one’s practice and network with some of the best known professionals in their fields. Many of our MFA students have gone on to collaborate with and work for our visiting speakers.
www.newpaltz.edu/fpa/art/events/visiting-artist/
Alfredo Jaar, Andres Serrano, Ann Hamilton, Arthur Danto, Nicole Eisenman, Audrey Flack, Carolee Schneeman, Dave Hickey, David Levi Strauss, Donald Kuspit, Duane Michaels, Elizabeth Murray, Eric Fischl, Fred Wilson, Gregory Crewdson, Haim Steinbach, Janine Antoni, Jim Jarmusch, Glenn Adamson, Judy Pfaff, Lisa Gralnick, Lucy Lippard, Martin Puryear, Mary Kelly, Mel Chin, Nato Thompson, Paul Pfeiffer, Petah Coyne, Peter Bauhuis, Alexis Rockman, Vincent Desiderio, Ellen Gallagher, Robert Crumb, Sharon Church, Sue Coe, Tim Rollins and KOS, Tanya Marcuse, Vincent Cianni, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Lori Nix, Arlene Shechet, Richard Notkin, Tom Joyce, Ursula von Rydingsvaard, Vito Acconci, Vivian Beer, David Bielander, Beatrice Brovia, Jessica Calderwood, Helen Drutt English, Adam Grinovich, Aurélie Guillaume, Sophie Hanagarth, Hanna Hedman, Lauren Kalman, Dread Scott, Ezra Shales, The Yes Men and Zoe Leonard.
Brooklyn Biennial, Williamsburg.
Every two years, students and alumni of the MFA program exhibit their work in the artists’ mecca of Brooklyn, New York, drawing on the College’s enduring spirit of impassioned artistry and longtime reputation as one of the best art schools in the Northeast. This well-attended exhibition, located at the Williamsburg Art and Historical Center, provides unparalleled access to New York City’s thriving artworld and has been featured in art periodicals such as Hyperallergic and the Brooklyn Rail Past exhibitions have been curated by Shannon Stratton, former chief curator of the Museum of Arts and Design in Manhattan, and Glenn Adamson, senior scholar at the Yale Center for British Art and pivotal author of numerous books on craft.
Hundreds of people visit each opening, including collectors and representatives of major New York City art world institutions. These shows have led to purchases of artwork by prominent patrons, as well as opportunities for students to exhibit their work in future shows.
Founder and Artistic Director Yuko Nii
The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art. Your museum.
Your
graduate thesis.
SUNY New Paltz is home to the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, a 9,000square-foot venue for exhibitions distributed over six galleries. It is one of the largest collegiate art museums in New York State and a one-of-akind cultural resource in the Hudson Valley.
The Dorsky’s permanent collection comprises more than 5,500 works of art from around the world. The collection is encyclopedic in nature, with areas of concentration including the art of the Hudson Valley and Catskill Mountain region; 19th century American prints; photography; contemporary metals; and a strong World Collection featuring works and artifacts from diverse cultures, dating from classical to modern times.
The museum’s temporary exhibition program has been hailed as one of the best in the region. It has delivered more than 100 exhibitions, installations and other projects by internationally recognized artists like Robert Morris, Alice Neel, Mary Reid Kelley, Judy Pfaff, Carolee Schneemann and Ushio Shinohara.
The Dorsky offers New Paltz students the rare opportunity to gain professional experience in the organization and presentation of art exhibitions. Graduating MFA students present their thesis exhibitions in the Museum’s spacious galleries.
“The Dorsky is proud to showcase artwork by the talented artists in the MFA program; their thesis exhibitions are always a highlight of our calendar. We collaborate with MFA artists in a variety of other ways, including our Graduate Assistantship and the Artistin-Residence program. The Museum is part of the MFA experience and we’re fortunate to engage with such gifted emerging artists.”
Anna Conlan, Neil C. Trager Director, Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art
Ceramics.
Our program cultivates the practical, conceptual and professional growth of our graduate students by providing an environment balanced among technical skill development, critical and theoretical dialogue, and intensive studio research. Faculty guide students’ independent research and individual approaches to their practice while fostering independence, self-reliance and confidence in an environment of peer-to-peer and student-to-professor support. The curricular structure challenges students to critically evaluate their work within a material-specific and an interdisciplinary framework, as well as in theoretical and professional contexts, which results in innovative, dynamic and authentic outcomes ranging from objects and pottery to installation and socially-engaged practice. Students are encouraged to work with methodologies that explore the boundaries of the field while demonstrating an understanding of historic and contemporary ecologies.
Faculty.
Anat Shiftan
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Anat Shiftan was born in Jerusalem, Israel, and studied English Literature and Philosophy at the Hebrew University, and Ceramics at Cranbrook Academy of Art and Design. Shiftan has been teaching ceramics at SUNY New Paltz since 2003. Shiftan has received two Michigan Grants for Individual Artists and has exhibited her work extensively. Shiftan has collaboratively organized: Contemporary Issues in Clay: A British Perspective (2006) and Why Clay? ( 2008), and organized Beyond Hand Made (2008), symposiums that examined theoretical, social and economic contexts in which creative practice in visual arts occurs today. Her work focuses on our historical and current ways of understanding nature and history. Recent shows include solo shows at Pewabic Pottery, Greenwich House Pottery, The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, Vessels gallery and group shows at Great China Museum, China Jingdezhen, Jingdezhen Contemporary International Ceramics Exhibition, Art Shanghai, the Dorsky Museum, Wave Hill NY and Hostler Burrows gallery NY and LA.
shiftana@newpaltz.edu (845) 257-7834
anatshiftan.info
Bryan Czibesz ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Bryan Czibesz is an artist and object maker who asks questions of authorship and authenticity in his work by manipulating clay and other materials with a range of hand, digital, and mechanical processes. He earned his MFA from San Diego State University and BA from Humboldt State University. He has exhibited his work in solo and group exhibitions, lectured, and taught workshops in clay and digital fabrication throughout the United States and internationally, including Fondation Bernardaud in Limoges, France, the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, The Center for Craft, Creativity & Design, Sculpture Space NYC, the Riga Porcelain Museum in Latvia, the Nelson Atkins Museum, Greenwich House Pottery, and the Honolulu Museum of Art. He has been Artist-inResidence at The International Ceramics Studio in Kecskemét, Hungary, C.R.E.T.A. Rome, The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts, and the University of Hawaii at Manoa. bryanczibesz.com czibeszb@newpaltz.edu (845) 257-3834
Czibesz/ Angel Patina and Background Artifact 2, 2018
Shiftan/ Orchard with Branches and Fruit, 2020
Studio space & environment.
Each student is provided a private graduate studio space within the program’s expansive 10,000-square-foot facility. Our state-of-the-art working spaces give students a wide range of technical opportunities and are fully equipped to accommodate both traditional and current ceramic practices. The well resourced, ventilated and brightly lit studios are designed to be flexible and responsive to the needs of the students and the curriculum. Studios are outfitted with a full range of equipment that is essential to all methods of clay fabrication, surface development and firing, including computer aided design, prototyping and manufacturing tools that support our students’ expanding production needs. Our generously equipped clay and glaze materials lab support limitless testing and experimentation. Firing ranges from low to high temperatures in electric, gas, soda and wood kilns. Large, mid-range and small kilns are available for group and individual firings.
Kilns/
• 50 ft3 downdraft car kiln
• 35 ft³ downdraft car kiln
• 12 ft³ downdraft gas kiln
• 18 ft³ downdraft soda kiln
• 200 ft³ Anagama wood kiln
• 25 ft³ front-load electric kiln
• 20 ft³ front-load electric kiln
• 7 top-load electric kilns
• 6 top-load test electric kilns
Equipment/
• Mac computer lab
• 2 extrusion clay 3D printers
• full-color ceramic decal printer
• installation and photography room and equipment for documenting work
• digital projector
• iron oxide decal printer
• 2 Peter Pugger mixing pug mills
• 1 Peter Pugger mixing and de-airing pug mill Soldner clay mixer
• 2 blunger slip mixers
• 2 spray booths
• plaster mixing and mold-making room
• plaster band saw
• plaster lathe
• Jolly Jigger
• 3 slab rollers
• 2 extruders
• fully-equipped tool room with hand and power tools
Additional Resources/
• fully equipped wood shop
• Digital Fabrication Lab, including: laser cutter, vinyl cutter, 4' x 8' ShopBot CNC router, large format color printer
• Hudson Valley Additive Manufacturing Center with Stratasys, 3D Systems and Makerbot printers for plastic, resin and metal
Internships, residencies, fieldwork.
Our students have access to a wide range of world-class institutions, organizations and professionals for internship and fieldwork opportunities in the Hudson Valley and in New York City. Related experiences are highly encouraged as they expand and deepen the students’ understanding of the field and related professional goals, and provide invaluable networking opportunities. Students have interned with NYC-based practicing ceramic artists and designers as well as with curators and editors of ceramics publications and ceramics art centers.
Student success.
Our alumni have entered and sustained a broad range of successful careers as ceramic sculptors, studio potters, designers, independent studio artists, educators and writers in the field. They exhibit and publish their work nationally and internationally and have received awards from international exhibition forums such as the Yingge Taiwan Ceramics Biennale, the Korean Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale and NCECA National exhibitions. Their work and writing is regularly featured in Studio Potter, Ceramics Art and Perception, Ceramics Technical, Ceramics Monthly and many Lark Published books. Our alumni teach at highly regarded national and international institutions including Emily Carr, KyungHee University, Suwon University, Konkuk University in Korea, the National College of Art in Lahore, Pakistan, Skidmore College and Marymount Manhattan College, as well as community colleges and ceramics programs in prominent public and private schools. Many of our alumni direct programs in art centers sector such as Women’s Studio Workshop, Art Centro and Studio Potter. Our graduates have received competitive fellowships and residencies at the Museum of Arts and Design; The International Ceramics Studio in Kecskemét, Hungary; the Arctic Circle Expeditionary Residency; Anderson Ranch; and The Archie Bray Foundation.
Continued Support/ Once our students graduate, we are committed to supporting their professional growth. This includes community building among alumni, supporting exhibition opportunities, residency and job applications.
Visiting artists.
Our visiting artist programs are rich with lectures and weeklong workshops supported by the New Paltz Student Art Alliance, Student Association, Design Week, and Andrah Foundation. Recent Visiting artists and critics include: Glenn Adamson, Anders Ruhwald, Arlene Shechet, Ronald Rael, Ezra Shales, Annabeth Rosen, Del Harrow, Paul Sacaridiz, Claire Twomey, Julian Stair, Bobby Silverman, Judith Schwartz, Helen Drutt, Bruce Dehnert, Roxanne Jackson, Ayumi Horie, Klein Reid, Marek Cecula, Adam Welch, Akiyama Yo, Steve Montgomery, Beth Cavener, Richard Notkin, Jennifer Allen and Brian Harper.
Metal.
Metal is an active area of study that engages a wide variety of ideas, objects, images and modes of making toward critical and dynamic outcomes. Students and faculty form a community of inquiry to examine and expand the field’s discourse. The rigorous curriculum provides opportunities to explore the technical, aesthetic and conceptual aspects of contemporary jewelry and metalsmithing in a state-ofthe-art facility with teachers who are actively engaged artists and who exhibit and lecture internationally. The program is directed by Professor Myra Mimlitsch-Gray with Assistant Professor Lynn Batchelder as prominent academic faculty. SUNY New Paltz is among the largest graduate metal programs in the country and has earned the distinction of being ranked the #1 metal MFA program at a public university by U.S. News and World Report.
Faculty.
Myra Mimlitsch-Gray PROFESSOR OF METAL
Myra Mimlitsch-Gray explores craft’s subjects, engaging the field’s history and methods to interpret utility and form. She constructs material fictions and speculative objects that are conversant with sculpture and domestic ware.
Mimlitsch-Gray received her MFA in Metalsmithing from Cranbrook Academy of Art. An American Craft Council Fellow, she was named Master of the Medium by the James Renwick Alliance. As professor she received two Chancellor’s Awards from the State University of New York: Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities, and Excellence in Teaching. Individual artist fellowships include the United States Artists Foundation, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Mimlitsch-Gray’s work is in collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museums of Scotland, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, among others.
mimlitschgray.com
mimlitsm@newpaltz.edu (845) 257-3836
Lynn Batchelder ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF METAL
Adam Mastropaolo INSTRUCTIONAL SUPPORT TECHNICIAN
Mimlitsch-Gray/
Lynn Batchelder’s work is rooted in the drawing process; she translates the quality of the drawn line into metal as she seamlessly moves between creating jewelry, objects and works on paper. Batchelder received her MFA from SUNY New Paltz. In 2016 she received the internationally competitive Art Jewelry Forum Artist Award, and is the recipient of a Peter S. Reed Foundation Grant. She was awarded the 2013–14 Artist-in Residence at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, and has earned residencies at Penland School of Crafts, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and Women’s Studio Workshop. Batchelder was a Visiting Lecturer of Art Metals at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. She presented the Emerging Artist Lecture for the Society of North American Goldsmiths at SOFA-Chicago. Batchelder’s work is exhibited extensively in the United States and abroad, including the prestigious Talente exhibition at the International Trades Fair in Munich. Solo shows include Inlets and Exits at the Heidi Lowe Gallery in Rehoboth Beach, DE, Nonlinear at the Gallery at Reinstein|Ross in New York. She is represented by Gallery Loupe in Montclair, New Jersey, where she will present a solo exhibition in 2021. lynnbatch.com batchell1@newpaltz.edu (845) 257-3886
Adam Mastropaolo received his BFA from SUNY Purchase with a concentration in sculpture. His interest in metal at an atomic level stems largely from his time spent working at Steven Kretchmer, a jewelry design studio renowned for developing exotic precious metal alloys. While there, he researched, developed and produced purple and blue golds, heat treatable precious metal alloys and a magnetic platinum alloy that were awarded U.S. patents. These proprietary alloys were utilized to create jewelry with unique characteristics such as tension set diamonds, bands that would slide apart to reveal secret inscriptions, and earrings with levitating components. As an early adopter of emerging technologies who has worked with a broad range of equipment and processes, Mastropaolo is well suited to manage the diverse and extensive Metal Studio at New Paltz.
mastropa@newpaltz.edu (845) 257-7793
Taped Pitcher, 2019. Enamel on steel Batchelder/ Inscribe/Erase, 2019. Sterling Silver. Mastropaolo/ Homage to Mendeleev, #29, 2016. Copper.
Studio space & environment. Equipment & resources.
Designed to give students a broad range of technical opportunities, the 10,000-square-foot metal studio is fully equipped to accommodate most hands-on metalsmithing and jewelry making practices— from fine work in precious metals to large scale, formed and welded constructions. The main studio consists of a large classroom and open workspace, which includes forming and smithing tools, and general machinery such as band saws, drill presses, shears, rolling mills, grinders, sanders, metal lathes and mill. Adjoining the main space are task rooms, each designed for specific processes such as annealing, mold making, casting, enameling, electroforming, etching, patination, laser cutting, welding and blacksmithing. Our computer lab runs current design software for both 2D and 3D outputs. Separate BFA and MFA studios include individual spaces for all majors. These semi-private spaces are equipped with soldering stations (oxygen/propane, acetylene and compressed air), fume exhaust hoods, sinks, workbenches, kilns, and storage space. A central ventilation system creates safe air quality throughout the entire metal studio. Department wide resources include an outstanding Wood Studio and the Digital Fabrication Lab, housing CAD-CAM equipment including 3D printers, laser scanners, laser cutters, desktop CNC milling and a large format CNC router. The College's Hudson Valley Additive Manufacturing Center is home to one of the only 3D metal printers in the region.
Student success.
Metal students and alumni are highly productive artists. They contribute to the richness of this field in meaningful ways by actively building a critical and productive community through their energetic, creative professional work. As highly productive artists, students and alumni have presented in competitive international exhibitions during Munich Jewelry Week. Notably, New Paltz was the first American university granted a featured exhibition at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, Germany. The exhibition of over 100 works, Staring in Hindsight, was on view in conjunction with the International Handwork and Design exposition. In 2018, students and faculty presented Denizen, a major installation of art, jewelry and objects at the legendary Hotel Chelsea during the inaugural New York City Jewelry Week. The Metal Program and our alumni continue to exhibit and be prominent participants at this yearly event.
Metal students have received prestigious scholarships from the Society of North American Goldsmiths and significant artist-residencies at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Harbourfront Centre in Toronto and Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, among others. Alumni have earned professorships at prestigious institutions such as RISD, University of Wisconsin, University of Oregon, University of Georgia and the Maine College of Art. They direct and teach in the jewelry program at the 92nd Street Y in New York.
Internships, residencies, fieldwork.
Metal students take full advantage of their proximity to New York and important art and jewelry galleries in the region, finding opportunities to expand their practice in professional settings. The program has strong relationships with renowned craft programs such as the Penland School, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Arrowmont and Peters Valley. Scholarships and summer internships provide support for participation in these programs. MFAs may enroll in Internship to College Art Teaching, in which they work closely with area faculty who mentor their teaching. Students who take this course are eligible for teaching assistantships.
Visiting artists
Recent visiting artists and critics include Glenn Adamson, Vivian Beer, David Bielander, Beatrice Brovia, Jessica Calderwood, Helen Drutt English, Adam Grinovich, Aurélie Guillaume, Sophie Hanagarth, Hanna Hedman, Lauren Kalman and Ezra Shales. These visitors conduct individual critiques with students during their visit and provide meaningful insights that expand students’ vision and perspective.
All student works pictured are from 2020.
From top, Left to right, clockwise:
MinJae Eom/ Heirloom #1
Stefan Gougherty/ Spyware Brooch
Claire Webb/ Circuitous Visions #3
Jamie Shcherzer/ Twin Shadows
Painting & Drawing.
The MFA in Painting & Drawing offers a balance of intensive studio research and group dialogue. Long revered for their traditions, painting and drawing now intersect with new media, including digital technologies. Our students explore a wide range of materials and methodologies that enlarge the possibilities of the discipline. An accomplished faculty supports our MFAs in their creative investigations.
We believe students thrive with exposure to diverse issues and critical/theoretical viewpoints. A different professor teaches graduate painting each term, with joint critiques held periodically. Majors also benefit from visiting artists/ critics and interdisciplinary forums. Our program prepares students for futures as professional artists and college educators. Internship, residency, and fieldwork opportunities in New York City and the Hudson Valley offer breadth in knowledge and experience.
Faculty.
Andrew Woolbright
ADJUNCT PROFESSOR
Arnold/ Divers, 2019
Goodell/ Mesmer Eyes, 2012
Woolbright/ Stompers Mall, 2021
Robin Arnold has received numerous honors for her creative work, including a Millay Colony Fellowship and a Ford Foundation Grant. Her works have been exhibited nationally, at such venues as Axel Raben and Steinbaum Krauss Gallery in New York City, Wake Forest University, the New York State Museum in Albany, the Hyde Collection, Concordia University Ann Arbor, Newark’s Aljira Contemporary Art Center, and Cornell University. Her works encompass environmental and socio-political concerns, and the synthetic interface between nature and contemporary culture. Reviews include the New York Times, Albany Times Union, Detroit Free Press, and Art New England. Robin Arnold holds an MFA in painting from Michigan State University, and previously taught drawing and painting at Syracuse University. She has been honored with seven Research and Creative Projects Grants and the State University of New York Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. Her works are held in the photographic archives of the Museum of Modern Art and the Drawing Center in New York City, as well as public collections.
robinarnoldstudio.net
arnoldr@newpaltz.edu (845) 257-3839
Kathy Goodell was born in San Francisco and received both her B.F.A. and M.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute. Her works span painting, drawing, sculpture and photography and are often in combination, exploring notions of metaphysics and the uncanny. She has exhibited her work both nationally and internationally, and within the last five years, she participated in more than 100 exhibits in cities across the United States, and throughout Europe, Mexico and South America. In 2013-14 she was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2014 she also received a Camargo Foundation/Jerome Foundation, and BAU Institute Fellowship to France. In 2013 she was featured in the Huffington Post; “In Conversation with Kathy Goodell.” She has also been the recipient of multiple awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts; The National Endowment for the Arts; the Pollock-Krasner Foundation for the Arts; the Phelan Award (for a California born artist), and a Fulbright Fellowship. Kathy Goodell previously taught at the University of California; the San Francisco Art Institute, Moore College of Art and Design, and the School of Visual Arts.
Andrew Woolbright is an artist, curator, and writer thinking about bodies as anagrams. His work focuses on attention ecologies, radically non-hierarchical visual information streams; how rogue aesthetics from video games and pop-up ads invade and inform real and meaningful experiences, like love and death. He has an MFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and has exhibited with Ada Gallery, Zurcher Gallery New York, Nancy Margolis, Galerie Valeria Cetraro in Paris, and Coherent Brussels. His work has been reviewed in TimeOut New York, ArtViewer, Two Coats of Paint, The Boston Globe and the Chicago Reader and is currently in the collection of the RISD Museum. In March 2017, Woolbright founded the gallery Super Dutchess at 53 Orchard St. on the lower east side. Woolbright writes for Two Coats of Paint, Momus and E-Flux’s Art and Education. In 2021, he curated a survey exhibition of Kathy Goodell’s work, Infra-Loop, and is currently curating two shows based on his article, “Phantom Body: Avatars, Weightless Bodies, and the End of Skin” in WhiteHot Magazine . andrewwoolbright.com woolbria@newpaltz.edu
Kathy Goodell PROFESSOR
Robin Arnold PROFESSOR
Studio space & environment.
MFA painters have generous 200-square-foot private studios in Smiley Art Building. A key-card system gives after-hours access. The building is equipped with three computer labs, one of which holds a 64-inch Epson printer for Digital Painting courses. Facilities also include a spray booth and the College’s Digital Design and Fabrication complex, with an industry standard laser cutter, vinyl cutter, CNC router and more. A wood shop is in the adjacent Fine Arts Building. Smiley also houses a graduate gallery and critique space, and the Photography & Related Media MFA studios. The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art adjoins the complex.
Internships, residencies, fieldwork.
Internship and fieldwork opportunities are encouraged and accessible via a wide range of institutions and professionals. Research and Creative Projects Awards are available to assist with student projects, and our majors are frequent recipients of these funds. Our students have had internships at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts and Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation (NYC), and residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, the Edward Albee Foundation, Mass MOCA, Chautauqua School of Art, Cooper Union in NYC, the Wassaic Project, Albany Barn Studios, and Griffis Art Center in Connecticut.
Student success.
Our graduates exhibit nationally and internationally; venues include: The Armory Show in NYC, Art Basel Miami Beach, Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center in Buffalo, The Arts Club of London, and Harvard University. Former students are on the staff at the Aldrich Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Our graduates have secured teaching positions at the University of Rochester, California State Long Beach, RISD, Massachusetts College of Art, Savannah College of Art and Design, Manhattanville College, Hong Ik University and Gyeongsang National University in South Korea, Maryland Institute of Contemporary Art and SUNY Buffalo. Graduate honors include: the NYFA Fellowship, the Pollock-Krasner Fellowship, the Thayer Fellowship in the Arts, Vermont Studio Center Residencies, Civitella Ranieri Fellowship in Italy, World Views Residency Fellowship, MacDowell Colony Residency, Whitney Independent Study Program Fellowship, Cooper Union Artist Residency, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award nomination, and artist books in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Visiting artists.
A partial list of visiting artists includes: Alfredo Jaar, Robert Crumb, Patti Phillips, Nicole Eisenman, Amy Sillman, Polly Apfelbaum, Julie Evans, Byron Kim, Glen Goldberg, Sangram Majumdar, Alexis Rockman, Tom Thayer, Mike Bidlo, Ellen Gallagher, Judith Linhares, Eleanor Heartney, Kojo Griffin, China Marks, Vincent Desiderio, Michael Ashkin, Julie Heffernan, Susanna Coffey, April Gornick, Barbara Takenaga, Marco Maggi, Martin Puryear, Lucy Lippard, Cynthia Lin, Lee Ming Wei, Diller + Scofidio, Marcia Tucker, Alexander Melamid, Terry Zwigoff.
Photography & Related Media.
Photography today is in crisis. Deeply tied to the technological and industrial transformations which shape our current reality, photography reflects and drives change at the same time. As artists, we are challenged to harness this extraordinary tool to envision the future we desire. As image makers, we grapple with complexity, with representation, with agency and visibility. How can we expose unseen processes and experiences? How can the photographic image elicit joy? How have we harnessed it as a weapon?
We believe in inquisitive creative research and engage our students in critical discourse and experiential processes to foster their personal development, conceptual foundation and artistic vision. Our photography faculty offer a multifaceted range of expertise, creative methodology and paths of inquiry. Students also benefit from an ongoing interdisciplinary dialogue with faculty and MFA students across the Art Department’s many programs. Through involvement in this community of artists, they expand their understanding of creative approaches and develop a rich network of professional relationships.
Faculty.
Andrea Frank ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Andrea Frank’s artistic work addresses complexity and ecology from a systemsthinking perspective. Her practice spans lens-based approaches as well as experiential collaborative engagements. She graduated with honors from the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, Germany, and received her MFA from Parsons The New School in New York City, where she also participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program. Before joining the SUNY New Paltz faculty in 2012, she taught Photography and Related Media at MIT’s Program in Art, Culture and Technology in Cambridge, MA. Frank has received numerous grants and fellowships from institutions such as the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes, Arts Mid-Hudson, the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York, and the SUNY Network of Excellence among others. Her work has been reviewed in a range of publications internationally, including the New York Times, Tema Celeste, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and the Boston Globe. Solo exhibitions include Galleria Michela Rizzo in Venice, Italy, Carroll and Sons in Boston, Edward Thorp Gallery in New York, the Kunsthalle Göppingen in Germany, and the UNF Gallery of Art in Jacksonville, FL.
andreafrank.net
franka@newpaltz.edu (845) 257-2786
Nadia Sablin ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Nadia Sablin, a native of Russia, earned a BFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology and an MFA from Arizona State University. Her work investigates the relationship between documentary and fictional storytelling and explores the larger world through close personal narratives. She has received grants and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, MacDowell colony, Firecracker, the Puffin Foundation, and the Peter S. Reed Foundation. Her work has been featured in such publications as the New York Times, the Guardian, the Moscow Times, Slate, The New Yorker, American Photo and the Financial Times. Nadia Sablin’s photographs have been seen in solo and group exhibitions across the U.S., including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Southeast Museum of Photography, Blue Sky Gallery in Oregon, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Bellevue College in Washington, and Texas Women’s University School of Art among others. As a recipient of the Center for Documentary Studies/ Honickman First Book Prize in Photography, Sablin’s first monograph, Aunties, was published by Duke University Press/CDS in 2015.
nadiasablin.com
sablinn@newpaltz.edu (845) 257-2787
James Fossett works primarily in photography, video, and performance. His work investigates narrative culture and storytelling. He received his BA in Photojournalism from Kent State University, Kent OH, and his MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He has shown work, participated in artist residencies, and led workshops at; The Sibikwa Arts Centre in Benoni, South Africa, The Centre for the Less Good Idea, Johannesburg, South Africa, The Skissernas Museum in Lund, Sweden, The Academy for Untamed Creativity and The Academy for Modern Circus both in Copenhagen, Denmark, The Ballinglen Arts Foundation in Ballycastle, Ireland, The Brooklyn Children’s Museum, Brooklyn, NY, Alfred University, Alfred, NY, Women’s Studio Workshop, Rosendale, NY. Additionally, he has performed in Fringe Festivals in New Orleans, LA, New York, NY, Portland, ME, Rochester, NY, Malmo, Sweden, Reykjavik, Iceland. Fossett received multiple awards and grants awards from organizations such as New York Council for the Arts, Arts Mid-Hudson, Franklin Furnace, The Jim Henson Foundation, Pro Arts Public Service Award from the City of Boston. cavedogs.org
fossettj@newpaltz.edu 845-257-2676
James Fossett ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Studio space & environment.
Our MFA students are provided generous studio space and have access to a wide range of analog and digital cameras, including digital medium format and view cameras, on-location lighting kits, projectors and other related equipment. The Photography program features a variety of studios including critique rooms and digital labs with Imacon scanners and large-format printers, a black-and-white darkroom, a lighting studio and a print finishing room.
Through elective courses, students can gain access to a range of resources in other areas in the Art Department and beyond to produce their work across media, including well-equipped woodshop, sculpture, ceramics and printmaking studios. Department-wide resources include the Hudson Valley Additive Manufacturing Center and Digital Fabrication Lab, which house CAD-CAM equipment including 3D printers, scanners, laser cutters and a large format CNC router.
Internships, residencies, fieldwork.
Our students have easy access to a wide range of world-class institutions, organizations, and professionals, leading to internship and fieldwork opportunities in the Hudson Valley and in New York City. Applied experiences are highly encouraged as they expand and deepen the students’ understanding of the field, and provide valuable networking opportunities. Students have done residencies and internships with organizations such as the International Center for Photography in New York, Dia:Beacon, the Brooklyn Museum, the Penumbra Foundation, the New York Observer, the Village Voice, the New York Foundation for the Arts, as well as with successful photographers working in the field.
Student success.
Our graduates are innovative thinkers and cultural practitioners who have sustained a broad range of successful careers. Some have contributed their vision and skills to the empowerment of their community. The Newburgh Community Photo Project, for example, is a grassroots public arts program directed by alumnus Vincent Cianni ’86 that engages local youth around critical social justice issues. Many are actively exhibiting artists who show their work at venues such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago and Yossi Milo Gallery in NYC. Others have entered careers in documentary photography, studio photography, or university teaching. A conversation with alumna Greta Pratt ’05g is featured in this publication. Our graduates have received competitive fellowships and awards such as the Jerome Foundation grant, the NYFA grant and the Photographer’s Fellowship Award from the Center for Photography in Woodstock. They have engaged in residencies with organizations such as the Cooper Union Artist Residency, the Vermont Studio Center Residency, El Centro de la Imagen in Mexico City, the Lightwork Residency in Syracuse and the El Museo del Barrio Artist Residency Program in New York City. Their work has been published by NYU Press, the Center for Documentary Studies, Daylight Books, Steidl, and others. Their artworks are in collections worldwide including the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Visiting artists.
We foster a rich and diverse discourse in the classroom and beyond. Recent visiting artists include Zora J Murff, Alfredo Jaar, Tarrah Krajnak, David Levi Strauss, Tanya Marcuse, Vincent Cianni, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Lori Nix, Irina Rozovsky, Pixy Liao, David Maisel, Reiner Leist, Ariel Shanberg, Joshua Lutz, Priya Kambli, and Paul Mpagi Sepuya.
Printmaking.
The Printmaking Program prepares students to be professional artists and to teach art at the college level. Our program offers a broad range of traditional, contemporary and innovative techniques while encouraging students to formulate and articulate their philosophical and personal concepts and translate them into visual ideas. This intensive studio experience combines critical and theoretical dialogue. We are dedicated to acquainting students with the rich and diverse world of multicultural art and its formative impact on contemporary art. Over the past three decades, digital technologies have expanded the possibilities for making print-based images and objects in ways that continue to emerge. At the same time, students are intensely interested in hand papermaking and book arts both in a traditional sense, and as a material for sculpture and innovation. Working with more sustainable materials is a crucial matter; we conduct ongoing research in this area and continuously redefine our curriculum to develop safer, renewable processes.
Faculty.
Aurora De Armendi ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Parisi/ Shiny Star, 2017
De Armendi/ Libro de Colores II / El Monte y el Mar, 2016.
64 Monotypes (Oil-based lithographic inks printed on Kitakata Paper). Closed Book: 20 ¼ in. x 14 1 8 in. x ¼ in.
Open Book: 40 ¼ in. x 14 1 8 in. Oakes/ Street in Balaguer. mezzotint 2000
Jill Parisi ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Jill Parisi’s work examines the natural world’s patterns and structures. The imaginary species populating her installations sometimes react to viewer proximity and have been realized in various materials from small to large scale. She earned an MFA in Printmaking and a BFA in Painting from SUNY New Paltz. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is held in private and public collections. Exhibitions include MoCA Jacksonville, Wave Hill, IPCNY, and Douro Museum Portugal. Achievements and awards granted include a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Printmaking/Drawing/Artists’ Books, a public art commissions for New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Arts for Transit program and for DC Public Services, and international triennials including Graphica Creativa Jyvaskyla Art Museum, Finland, the Krakow Printmaking Triennial, International Print Network’s Graphically Extended in Oldenburg, Germany and Meken Dalarnas Museum, Falun, Sweden. jillparisi.com parisij@newpaltz.edu (845) 257-7871
Aurora De Armendi was born and raised in Cuba. She earned a BFA from The Cooper Union and an MFA from The University of Iowa. Her work explores the poetics of place and displacement, and the individual and collective memories therein, through a balance of scholarly and material research. Recent projects have taken the form of prints, artist books and ceramics. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at Wave Hill Garden, the International Print Center (NY), Instituto Cervantes (NY), San Francisco Center for Book Arts, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, the MDCC Museum at the Freedom Tower in Miami, Fototeca de Cuba and Biblioteca de Cantabria (Spain), among others. She has participated in the AIM program at The Bronx Museum and was a fellow at The Center for Book Arts (NY) in 2013. In 2016, she completed artist residencies at Anderson Ranch Arts Center (Colorado), Jamaica Flux (Queens, NY) and was a finalist for the Cintas Foundation Fellowship (Miami). Before joining the SUNY New Paltz faculty in 2020, she taught printmaking and book arts at Parsons The New School and The Cooper Union. De Armendi has worked collaboratively in educational initiatives in the United States, Central America and the Caribbean. Alongside her artistic and teaching practice she has worked in fine arts print publishing with Two Palms, The Lower East Side Printshop and independently.
dearmena@newpaltz.edu (845) 257-2871
Maggie Oakes
INSTRUCTIONAL SUPPORT TECHNICIAN
Maggie Oakes graduated from the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art & Design in Wroclaw, Poland in 2001 with a MFA in Printmaking and completed her Ph.D there in 2020. Before becoming the technician for Printmaking, she was the manager of the Art Center at West Point, NY. She is a mentor and advocate for students, helping them solve complex studio problems to achieve their fullest potentials. Among her many responsibilities, she maintains the expansive printmaking studios including the intaglio, litho, relief, papermaking, photolitho, and silkscreen processes. Maggie Oakes’ work is inspired by her many travels throughout Europe and the United States and her close contact with different cultures, traditions and people. She continues to be a part of group and solo exhibitions throughout Europe and United States, including recent shows at SUNY Orange and the Post-Digital International Printmaking Conference and Art Show at the Academy of Art & Design in Wroclaw, Poland.
oaksm@newpaltz.edu (845) 257-2855
Studio space & enviroment.
The Printmaking Program’s expansive studios offer nearly 8,000 square feet of total space, and are considered state of the art in both design and safety. A highly efficient central ventilation system creates continuous, safe air quality throughout the entire printmaking studio. Contemporary printmaking art processes include multi-media applications where traditional and cutting edge techniques merge.
A partial list of equipment includes four lithography presses, (including a 3' x 5' Takach press); a large inventory of stones ranging from small to very large, and two photolithography exposure units; four relief/etching presses, (including a 4' x 8' Takach press), a photo-silkscreen studio with two exposure units and five vacuum printing tables large and medium format, a medium size hand paper making facility including a new twopound custom built Reina beater. The computer labs hold eight computer stations with two wide-format color printers and two medium-format film printers. A critique room is equipped with four walls for displaying work, a digital projector, a large screen and a long hallway gallery well suited to the display of work.
Internships, residencies, fieldwork.
Our students have many opportunities to work on and off campus while enrolled, complementing their academic studies with first hand experience in a professional setting. We are in close proximity to many mid-Hudson Valley art venues and artists’ studios and there is easy access to New York City via bus for opportunities at galleries, museums, art studios, and numerous non-profit organizations. Several MFA Printmaking students have been awarded the Graduate Assistantship at the Samuel Dorsky Museum on campus, and Creative Research Project Grants that assist them with specific artistic projects, supporting workshops off campus and/or materials. Printmaking students have had internships at Pace Editions in NYC, the International Print Center in NYC, Lower East Side Printshop NYC, Deb Chaney Editions, Simmelink/Sukimoto Editions, Dieu Donne Papermill, Women’s Studio Workshop, Rosendale, New York; and Artist in Residence at The Arctic Circle, Svalbard, Norway. Our students and alumni have also worked with leading artists in the field as assistants.
Student success.
Exhibitions/ Our alumni are invited to exhibit at top venues around the world, including the Venice Biennial, SMTG Krakow Triennial, Tallinn Triennial, Oldenburg Triennial, Graphica Creativa Triennial, Douro Biennial, International Printmaking Center New York, and numerous museums, universities and galleries.
Awards/ Alumni awards include the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Printmaking, Drawing, and Artists Books; Fulbright Award; and Southern Graphics Council International MFA Award. Several recent alumni were awarded internships at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, NYC, and two were hired as the Studio Technician there. Our alumni have been awarded multiple public and private commissions.
Employment/ In addition to working as actively practicing artists, many of our alumni have gone on to successful careers as professors, studio technicians, artists’ assistants, printers for leading fine art printing publishers and exhibition specialists at universities and art venues around the world. Recent alumni have founded their own print studios and publishing companies, completed the Tamarind Professional Printer Program and co-founded various international art book fairs.
Visiting artists.
Our close proximity to NYC facilitates visits to campus by artists, printers, critics, curators, and alumni to share their experiences. A brief list includes: Lynn Allen, Charles Beneke, Luis Camnitzer, Alicia Candiani, Combat Paper, Devraj Dakoji, Dean Dass, Ismael Frigerio, Karen Kunc Daniel Martinez, Josh MacPhee, Liliana Porter, Andres Serrano, Richard Noyce, Andrew Raftery, Phil Sanders, Tanja Softic, Juan Sanchez, Paula vonSydow, Carol Wax, Linda Weintraub, Tatiana Ginsberg, Amy Jacobs, Akemi Martin, Marginal Editions, Shore Publishing, and Carriage House Paper. We schedule field trips to Print Week in NYC each November and both local and NYC print collections, galleries, studios and museums. Print Club organizes trips to Southern Graphics International Printmaking Conference.
www.newpaltz.edu/mfa
Sculpture.
What is the future you wish to sculpt? The Sculpture program equips students with an expansive toolkit of technical, conceptual and professional skills to craft sustainable lives and careers. In sculpture, everything is art materials. We encourage students to explore the expansive breadth of materials and approaches inherent within the field of contemporary sculpture. Courses in installation art, site-specific and socially-engaged sculpture, digital fabrication, casting/moldmaking, welding/ metal fabrication, electronics and kinetics, sound, public and ecoart, performance art, and material explorations offer students the opportunity to widen their creative practice.
Students may deepen their professional skills through teaching and graduate assistantship opportunities at the College and through abundant internships and fieldwork opportunities both in the Hudson Valley and New York City. The sculpture faculty offer an interdisciplinary, regenerative and community-oriented approach, engaging students in inquisitive creative research, critical dialogue and experiential processes to foster their conceptual development, artistic vision and professional portfolios. We invite you to join our creative community of curious thinkers and bold makers to sculpt the future with us.
Priscilla Dobler ’13. Mi Existencia entre Las Fronteras. 2013. Since graduating, Dobler has exhibited and held artist residencies both nationally and internationally and is the recipient of numerous awards, scholarships and grants, including from the Artist Trust and Tacoma Artist Initiative.
Faculty.
Michael Asbill VISITING LECTURER
Michael Asbill weaves arts advocacy, community engagement, environmentalism and curatorial endeavor into his installation and public art practice. His work has been experienced in venues such as Sporobole and Galerie Zybaldone (Sherbrooke, QC), Flux Factory (Long Island City, NY), The Oregon City Elevator, and the Poughkeepsie Train Station. As a core collaborator with Habitat for Artists, Michael contributed to eco and social engagement projects for Smack Mellon (Brooklyn, NY), Arts Brookfield (New York, NY), Washington DC’s Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the Corcoran Museum (Washington, DC), and 601 Tully (Syracuse, NY). He has received numerous grants, awards, commissions, and honors including the New York State/ Province of Quebec Artist-in-Residence Exchange Grant, inclusion in the “Introducing” series at the Roger Smith Hotel, and was an honoree at the Ulster County Executive Arts Awards by Arts Mid-Hudson with title of “Artivist” which was invented to acknowledge his community contributions. Michael is the founder and director of CHRCH Project Space (Rosendale, NY), a residency for the development of pioneering, community based, participatory artworks.
In 2016, Emily Puthoff co-founded the Hudson Valley Bee Habitat (HVBH), an eco-arts collective of artists and mindful educators saving the pollinators through the arts. Together, HVBH is leveraging their creativity to engage communities in the co-creation of public pollinator sculptures/ habitats and gardens to help both humans and pollinators thrive. Her work has been recognized by numerous grants, including a $100,000 New York Department of Environmental Conservation Environmental Justice Zone Community Impact Grant for a project entitled Conserving Pollinators through Community Engagement (2020–2022). She has been an artist in residence at the European Ceramic Work Centre, Women’s Studio Workshop, Sculpture Space, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, and Banff Art Centre. Several fellowships: the Good Work Institute Fellowship, National Arts Strategies Creative Community Fellowship, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Digital and Electronic Art, Artist in the Marketplace Fellowship at the Bronx Museum inform her professional practice and curriculum. emilyputhoff.com hvbeehabitat.org puthoffe@newpaltz.edu (845) 257-7835
INSTRUCTIONAL SUPPORT TECHNICIAN
Kelly McGrath earned her BFA from SUNY New Paltz in 2007 and her MA in Art Education from City University of New York Hunter College in 2019. Her work has been exhibited at the Arts Mid-Hudson Gallery, Unison Art Center, On Center Gallery, The Church, Katonah Art Center, NAEA National Gallery, Limner Gallery, The Gallery at R&F Handmade Paints, and the Kingston Sculpture Biennial. She is the former Program Director at R&F Handmade Paints where she has taught encaustics extensively. She holds annual teaching engagements through The Center of the Arts at Castle Hill and Kingston’s D.R.A.W. She has also taught at the Hudson Valley Museum of Contemporary Art and Women’s Studio Workshop. As our Sculpture Instructional Support Technician, Kelly provides mentorship to students with her breadth of technical and professional experience. She maintains her studio practice in Kingston, New York.
mcgrat24@newpaltz.edu (845) 257-7826
Kelly McGrath
Studio space & environment.
MFA students are provided generous semi-private studio spaces. The Sculpture Studio, encompassing over 10,000 square feet of studio space on the ground floor of the Fine Arts Building, provides ample space for sculpting and access to a wide range of equipment that includes welding/metal fabrication and woodworking tools, casting facilities, video/sound equipment, a well-appointed tool room, a computer lab for digital video/sound editing, 3D-modeling and robotic programming, and photo equipment/space for documenting artwork. A large dock area, rotunda space, and experimental installation space provide students space to experiment with display of work. Students also have access to the graduate Art Gallery and Art Department-wide resources including an exceptional Wood Design Studio and the Digital Fabrication Lab, housing 3D digital fabrication equipment including 3D printers, laser scanners, laser cutters, desktop CNC milling and 4' x 8' CNC router. Additionally, the College’s Hudson Valley Additive Manufacturing Center’s collection of 3D printers constitute some of the most advanced technology at any academic lab in the country and are available for the campus and wider community. Through elective courses, students can gain access to a range of resources in other programs in the Art Department to produce their work across media, including well-equipped ceramics, printmaking, metal, photography and painting facilities.
Internships, fieldwork, residencies.
Interships, Fieldwork/ Our students have easy access to a wide range of world class institutions, organizations, and professionals for internship and fieldwork opportunities in the Hudson Valley and New York City. Internships and fieldwork experiences are highly encouraged as they expand and deepen the students’ understanding of the profession and provide invaluable networking opportunities. Our students have interned with many artists and institutions including: Martin Puryear, Robert Morris, Petah Coyne, Jean Shin, Amanda Browder, Pat Oleszko, Sculpture Center, International Sculpture Center, Women’s Studio Workshop and Dia:Beacon.
Residencies/ Our alumni have been awarded many artist residencies including at the: Sculpture Space, Socrates Sculpture Park, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Swing Space, Vermont Studio Center, Franconia Sculpture Park, Center for Photography in Woodstock, Salem Art Works, Snug Harbor, Fountainhead, Dyson’s Artist Residency at Pace University, Gallery Aferro, and SOMA Mexico City.
Student success.
Student Careers/ Our sculpture graduates have sustained a broad range of successful careers including as professional artists, highly-skilled art fabricators, furniture designers, artist studio managers, illustrators, small business owners, art handlers, nonprofit leaders, famous taxidermists, sculpture studio technicians, neon magicians, gallery and museum professionals, art teachers, and university professors. The Artist Survival Skills course, created by Associate Professor Puthoff, provides students with a professional toolkit to craft sustainable lives and careers.
Awards/Exhibitions/ Our students have been honored many times with the prestigious Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award from the International Sculpture Society. In addition, they have been awarded the Windgate Fellowship, the Artist Trust Project Grant, and the AIM Fellowship. Alumni have exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Wave Hill Art Center, El Museo Del Barrio, La Luz de Jesus Gallery, SITE Santa Fe, Yvon Lambert, Zwirner & Wirth and Mike Weiss Gallery.
Visiting artists.
We foster a rich and diverse discourse in the classroom and beyond. Our close proximity to NYC and the Student Artist Alliance Visiting Artist Lecture Series facilitates visits to campus by artists, critics and curators to share their experiences and engage in studio visits with students. A brief list includes: Diana Al Hadid, Janine Antoni, Huma Bhabha, Mel Chin, Petah Coyne, Glenn Adamson, Gregory Scholette, Coco Fusco, Alfredo Jaar, Ann Hamilton, Lucy Lippard, Elizabeth Murray, Judy Pfaff, Martin Puryear, Paul Ramirez Jonas, Ursula Von Rydingsvaard, Carolee Schneeman, Dread Scott, David Levi Strauss and Fred Wilson.
Top left: Students collaborating in the Gravity in Play workshop led by visiting artist, Brigitte Jurack.
Bottom left: Students in the Sculpture Situations class engage with Emilie Houssart’s piece.
Top right: Students visit Linda Weintraub’s homestead for daylong sensory workshop crafted by Weintraub and Prof. Puthoff. Middle right: Intro to Sculpture student welding.
Bottom right: Students and “Plady” in the O+ Festival Parade.
The New Paltz Art faculty are a dedicated collective of teachers and practicing artists with significant national reputations. Our more than 40 full-time professors in Art and Art History make this one of the largest programs in the region, providing MFA students with a diverse array of creative, critical and pedagogical perspectives on their progression as makers. The Art faculty also includes frequent visiting artists, curators and technical staff available to respond individually to students’ needs.
Full faculty.
Graduate Coordinator
Matthew Friday, M.F.A., Indiana State University
Ceramics
Anat Shiftan, M.F.A., Cranbrook Academy of Art
Bryan Czibesz, M.F.A., San Diego State University
Michael Humphreys Instructional Support Technician
Painting & Drawing
Robin Arnold, M.F.A., Michigan State University
Kathy Goodell, M.F.A., San Francisco Art Institute
Andrew Woolbright, M.F.A., Rhode Island School of Design
Photography & Related Media
Andrea Frank, M.F.A., Parsons School of Design
Nadia Sablin, M.F.A., Arizona State University
James Fossett, M.F.A. School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Metal
Lynn Batchelder, M.F.A, SUNY New Paltz
Myra Mimlitsch-Gray, M.F.A., Cranbrook Academy of Art
Adam Mastropaolo, Instructional Support Technician
Graphic Design
Anne Galperin, M.F.A., Cranbrook Academy of Art
Arthur Hoener, M.F.A., Rhode Island School of Design
Joshua Korenblat, M.F.A., Maryland Institute College of Art
Amy Papaelias, M.F.A., SUNY New Paltz
Foundations
Thomas Albrecht, M.F.A., University of Washington
Rena Leinberger, M.F.A., Art Institute of Chicago
James Fossett, M.F.A., Tufts University
Itty Neuhaus, M.F.A., Temple University
Cheryl Wheat-Schmidt, M.F.A. Brooklyn College
Suzanne Stokes, M.F.A., SUNY New Paltz
Sculpture
Michael Asbill, M.F.A., University of California San Diego
Emily Puthoff, M.F.A., Arizona State University
Kelly McGrath, M.A., City University of New York Hunter College
Instructional Support Technician
Printmaking
Jill Parisi-Phillips, M.F.A. SUNY New Paltz
Aurora De Armendi, M.F.A. The University of Iowa Malgorzata (Maggie) Oakes, Instructional Support Technician
Art
Education
Andrea Kantrowitz, Ed.D., Columbia University Teachers College
Beth Thomas, Ph.D., The Ohio State University
Woodstudio
Ed Felton, Woodstudio Manager and Instructor
Art History
Kerry Dean Carso, Ph.D., Boston University, American art and architecture
Keely Heuer, Ph.D., New York University, art of Greece and Rome
Jaclynne Kerner, Ph.D. New York University, art and architecture of the Islamic world, medieval Europe
Ellen Konowitz, PhD., Institute of Fine Arts, Renaissance and Baroque art
Beth E. Wilson, M.A., Hunter College, M.Phil., CUNY Graduate Center, History of Photography and Film
Reva Wolf, Ph.D., Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, Modern and Contemporary Art
1. Review the admission requirements
Visit www.newpaltz.edu/graduate/programs/ and select the School of Fine & Performing Arts for admission requirements, curriculum outline, faculty information and more. Contact us at (845) 257-3285 or gradstudies@newpaltz.edu if you would like to schedule an advising appointment or need assistance selecting a program.
2. Begin your application
Visit our website at www.newpaltz.edu/graduate/admissions/apply-now/ to begin the application process. Remember to submit your application well in advance of your program’s admission deadline to ensure timely application review and early decision. We will continue to accept applications after Jan. 15 if studio spaces remain available. To verify availability for late applications please contact gradstudies@newpaltz.edu.
SUNY New Paltz will only review complete files for admission. We close all incomplete applications at the conclusion of each admission cycle and dispose of these files after two years. Please review our records retention policy on our website for more information: www.newpaltz.edu/graduate/recordsretention/
Program Information
Matthew Friday MFA Graduate Coordinator fridaym@newpaltz.edu
Admissions Information
Alana Matuszewsk Manager for Graduate Recruiting & Advising gradstudies@newpaltz.edu or 845-257-3285
Priority given to applications received by Jan. 15
We will continue to review applications after this deadline if there are studio spaces available.
