MFA Student Profiles
Patrick Myers, furniture design
What is a mentor-based MFA program, and how did you decide
MCAD's was right for you?
Under the mentor system at MCAD, an MFA candidate works directly under the advisement and counsel of a professor, artist or designer. This was ideal for me because I was motivated to work independently, yet I took seriously the advice and expertise of my mentor. The result of this relationship was a strong connection between student and mentor, the nature of which was defined by the semester contract that my mentor and I developed together. Thanks to that mentor-based program, MCAD allowed me to develop new skills on my own in order to fully develop my craft.
Who was your mentor, and how was that connection made?
My mentor was Thomas Oliphant, an independent sculptor and furniture designer from Minneapolis.
That's one of the great things about this MFA program. Along with faculty available to mentor graduate students, MCAD has connections to other working artists and designers in the Twin Cities who are willing to mentor students as well. I met with several potential mentors that I felt would be a good match, and while the faculty at MCAD is an impressive powerhouse of talent, Tom and I agreed that we would work really well together.
How did the relationship between you and your mentor help you to
grow as a designer?
In one of our first meetings, Tom summed up what he understood to be the goal of our relationship at MCAD: "In the past, Patrick was given a set of instructions. Now it's his turn to write the instructions."
In the two years that followed that meeting, Tom encouraged me to broaden my assumptions of what I am capable of and how I develop ideas. Because he is a sculptor, Tom prescribed a sculptural approach to my design work, a process that helped me realize that the boundary I had placed between art and design was arbitrary. He also pushed me to loosen up my process in order to allow for mistakes, and to let those mistakes reveal opportunities for further creative exploration.
Prior to starting the program I had in my mind an idea of where I wanted to be at the end of my experience at MCAD. I hadn't quite developed a clear plan on how I would achieve that goal or what my work would look like, but with Tom's guidance I developed a long-range plan to achieve my goals.
What kind of student will find success in the MCAD MFA program?
For a lot of aspiring artists and designers, an MFA curriculum full of classes is not necessarily ideal. A one-on-one relationship with an instructor may be better suited for students interested in fully exploring the content of their work; those are the students who will thrive at MCAD. The ideal student should expect his or her preconceptions of their own work to be seriously challenged in order for their work to evolve. They should be self-motivated, and they will need to possess an openness to guidance, a favorable reception of criticism and a willingness to stretch beyond their perceived limits.