The MFA in Graphic Design at VCFA is an innovative low-residency program built around students’ interests, values, and creative goals. Our faculty and students are continuously rethinking the field of graphic design.
I have been involved with the Vermont College of Fine Arts since 2011, first as a graduate student working towards a Master’s Degree in Graphic Design, and secondly working in several employment roles within the school.
Since graduating in 2013 from VCFA with a Masters degree, I have been assisting and working with the college in several capacities since then: as Exhibition Assistant and Coordinator, Interim Director of Graphic Design, and currently as Assistant Director.
Mary Hanrahan’s MFA studies at the Vermont College of Fine Arts included research on the Abstract Expressionist, Agnes Martin, Conceptual artist, Sol LeWitt, and British Conceptual Artist Simon Starling. Her persistent explorations involve repurposing memorabilia and ephemera, love of geometry, lines and grids, beekeeping and ancestry. She experiments with the fusion of visual art and graphic design and blending both disciplines. “Calming the chaos” is also an important aspect in her artistic and design process. “Makement” was the name of her thesis; a collision of two words, ‘making and movement.’
Artists who continue to influence her are: Joseph Cornell, Melissa Zinc, Bridget Riley, Agnes Pelton, Sol LeWitt and Eileen Hutton, and especially loves the Irish poet, Michael Hartnett.
“Art work is a representationof our devotion to life.” — Agnes Martin
