Maine College of Art & Design

Maine College of Art & Design The College has transformed a former department store into the main campus building with vibrant classrooms and studios that are open 24/7.

Through our 10:1 student-to-faculty ratio, access to state-of-the-art facilities, 24-hour-a-day studio access, and our central location in Portland’s creative community, this is the right-sized city and right-sized school to make your mark. Located in the heart of the Portland Arts District, Maine College of Art offers a Bachelor of Fine Arts, a Master of Fine Arts in Studio Arts, Master of Arts i

n Teaching, Salt Graduate Certificate in Documentary Studies, as well as Continuing Studies for adults and youths, including a Pre-College intensive for high school students. Also located in the Porteous Building, the Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA serves a critical regional role in its commitment to presenting contemporary, provocative work by living artists from Maine and around the globe. The Joanne Waxman Library is one of the largest independent libraries in Northern New England and a major resource for the region. At MECA, undergraduate students spend the first year developing a foundation and the second year exploring a variety of media. At the start of junior year, students declare a major and spend the next two years working within their discipline. MECA offers 11 majors in the BFA program: Ceramics, Digital Media, Graphic Design, Illustration, Metalsmithing & Jewelry, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture, Textile & Fashion Design, and Woodworking & Furniture Design. The College provides individual studios to all juniors and seniors. MECA is part of a five-college alliance that allows students to access classes and resources in the surrounding area.

Join Colin Self on Wednesday, July 1, at 5:30pm in Osher Hall for a Visiting Artist talk. Self is an artist, composer, a...
06/24/2026

Join Colin Self on Wednesday, July 1, at 5:30pm in Osher Hall for a Visiting Artist talk. Self is an artist, composer, and puppeteer based between Brooklyn and Berlin. They create music, performances, and new systems for interfacing with the human spirit across the spectrum between the living and the deceased. Their practices revolve around the temporary assembly of communities and the enactment of collaborative and dialogical experiments.

All Visiting Artist lectures are free and open to the public on a space-available basis. Check out the entire MFA Summer Visiting Artists Lecture Series: https://meca.edu/news/bc67529/

There's still time to register for the last Open House of the summer! Join us on Saturday, June 27, to tour the Porteous...
06/23/2026

There's still time to register for the last Open House of the summer! Join us on Saturday, June 27, to tour the Porteous building, meet your future faculty, and get your questions answered by our admissions team! Summer is one of the best times of year to visit Portland, and we can't wait to welcome you to campus.

Save your spot: https://apply.meca.edu/register/juneopenhouse26

Join Garrick Imatani on Monday, June 29, at 5:30pm in Osher Hall for a Visiting Artist talk in partnership with the . Ga...
06/22/2026

Join Garrick Imatani on Monday, June 29, at 5:30pm in Osher Hall for a Visiting Artist talk in partnership with the . Garrick Imatani is an interdisciplinary artist working in sculpture, installation, performance, and print. His work seeks relief, seduction, and resistance from imposed identities and systems of value rooted in lack, loss, and extraction. Imatani has exhibited or performed nationally and internationally, including at Blaffer Art Museum (Houston), Triumph Gallery (Moscow), Art in General (NYC), Portland Museum of Art (ME), ADA Museum at UC Santa Barbara, amongst others.

All Visiting Artist lectures are free and open to the public on a space-available basis.Check out the entire MFA Summer Visiting Artists Lecture Series: https://meca.edu/news/bc67529/

06/19/2026

In celebration of Juneteenth, the Joanne Waxman Library has curated a selection of titles to commemorate the abolition of enslavement in the United States. From artist monographs to histories, they've helped create a resource for the MECA&D community to celebrate and educate.

Books shown:
"I Can Make You Feel Good" by Tyler Mitchell
"In the Black Fantastic" by Ekow Eshun
"A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration" by Jessica Bell Brown and Ryan N. Dennis
"Illustrated Black history: Honoring the Iconic and the Unseen" by George McCalman with April Reynolds
"Carrie Mae Weems: the Louisiana Project" Newcomb Art Gallery, Tulane University
"The time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure" exhibition curator and catalog editor, Ekow Eshun; artist profiles written by Sarah Holdaway
"Afro-Atlantic histories" edited by Adriano Pedrosa, Tomás Toledo; texts by Adriano Pedrosa, Ayrson Heráclito, Deborah Willis, Hélio Menezes, Kanitra Fletcher, Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, Tomás Toledo, Vivian A. Crockett
"Fired up! Ready to Go! : Finding Beauty, Demanding Equity: An African American Life in Art: The Collections of Peggy Cooper Cafritz" by Peggy Cooper Cafritz
"The Black Biennial @ Rhode Island School of Design."
"The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration" by Isabel Wilkerson

Spend a summer day in Portland, Maine, for an Open House on Saturday, June 27! You'll have the opportunity to meet your ...
06/18/2026

Spend a summer day in Portland, Maine, for an Open House on Saturday, June 27! You'll have the opportunity to meet your future faculty, explore the spaces you'll learn and work in, and hear from our admissions team about everything related to the application process.

Register here: https://apply.meca.edu/register/juneopenhouse26

Join Nyugen E. Smith on Wednesday, June 24, at 5:30pm in Osher Hall for a Visiting Artist talk. Nyugen E. Smith is a Jer...
06/17/2026

Join Nyugen E. Smith on Wednesday, June 24, at 5:30pm in Osher Hall for a Visiting Artist talk.

Nyugen E. Smith is a Jersey City, NJ–based artist whose work investigates how stories are formed, transmitted, and disrupted within Black cultural life. His practice is grounded in an examination of the enduring effects of European colonial expansion and how those histories continue to shape experiences across the African Diaspora and the world at large.

All Visiting Artist talks are free and open to the public on a space-available basis.Check out the entire MFA Summer Visiting Artists Lecture Series: https://meca.edu/news/bc67529/

Our alumni, students, and faculty are showing their work all across Maine this summer! Check out the shows you don't wan...
06/15/2026

Our alumni, students, and faculty are showing their work all across Maine this summer! Check out the shows you don't want to miss this June. 🌻

Meet transfer student, painter, and recent graduate, Bets Ondrey '26. Bets spoke to us about finding community at Maine ...
06/10/2026

Meet transfer student, painter, and recent graduate, Bets Ondrey '26. Bets spoke to us about finding community at Maine College of Art & Design and the transformation of their work during their time here. Their work was recently featured in the Collect Summer Art Sale and in the group exhibition, Hungry Eyes, at 49 Oak.

Read the full interview with Bets via the link in our bio, where they discuss returning to Maine to earn their BFA and creating an environment where people can celebrate and inspire.

Anti-art language doesn't mix well with in our palette! 🎨
06/08/2026

Anti-art language doesn't mix well with in our palette! 🎨

Are you considering applying to our fully online, asynchronous Master of Arts in Education program? Join our Online Lear...
06/05/2026

Are you considering applying to our fully online, asynchronous Master of Arts in Education program? Join our Online Learning team for a virtual Info Session on June 8, 2026, at 6:00pm EST to hear directly from the experts about how this program meets busy professionals where they are and helps set them up for career success.

Get your questions answered and learn about our online Master of Arts in Education: https://online.meca.edu/news-events/2026-06-08/master-of-arts-in-education-virtual-information-session

Address

522 Congress Street
Portland, ME
04101

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 8pm
Tuesday 8am - 8pm
Wednesday 8am - 8pm
Thursday 8am - 8pm
Friday 8am - 8pm
Saturday 12pm - 5pm
Sunday 12pm - 5pm

Telephone

+18006394808

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