Image Martha Shepp Alumni '80 Education BFA, Minneapolis College of Art and Design Website marthashepp.com Current Career Musician and artist, self employed Location Questa, NM Personal Pronounsshe her elleDescribe what you do for work and how your experience with it has been.Systems thinking for branding and messaging across all media, graphic design and wordsmithing. It has been great!How did you get your job?My first job was as a graphic designer at an architecture office. I think it was an ad in the newspaper, in Oak Ridge, TN.How long ago did you graduate from MCAD?10+ years Where are you originally from and how did you hear about MCAD?Born in western New York state. Junior year exchange was in Cincinnati and a college fair there had MCAD's viewbook. Really big faces and intimate interviews. I was fascinated.What was your major and how did you choose it?Mixed major: illustration, painting, film.Who was your favorite faculty member and why?Herb Grika. A 360-degree creative master in his own right, equally dedicated to pushing students' comfort zones to grow and learn and expand. Fearless. It rubbed off on many of us.Best thing you ever found on the free shelf?Was there a free shelf in 1976-80? Did MCAD prepare you for life after graduation? In what way?Not in the same way MCAD courses currently do. We did have a senior colloquium... not really prepared for the working world, but prepared to continue with the notion that I was really truly an artist.Your biggest takeaway from MCAD?Being with fellow young people who self-identify as artists/outcasts from materialistic society trends is a nurturing place to be for 3 or 4 years.What inspires you/your work?Paradox and humaneness. How do you network yourself and your art?Reworking this, but in the past, social media, local rural art tour, website. Aiming for further reach than local venues but am in a phase of creating vs. networking in the next few years.What was your experience living in the Twin Cities? Any hidden treasures?No car, explored on foot a lot. The neighborhood has changed since the late 1970s but I loved the food coop on 1st Ave and the shabby thrift places on Nicollet where old ladies' fox furs and leather gloves could be found; they found their way into my installation artworks.