The MFA Art Practice Department is located in the vibrant Chelsea neighborhood of New York City, just blocks from the High Line, Chelsea market, and dozens of the art world’s most prominent galleries. Program participants have personal studio spaces for their summer residency periods, as well as access to state of the art facilities, including a digital lab with private stations equipped with up-to-the-minute software, a large-format printing center, a wood shop, a metal shop, and digital sculpture center that boasts computer-driven fabrication technologies.

MFA Art Practice participants who wish to access these facilities during the Fall and Spring semesters may do so for an additional lab fee. Participants must receive permission from the Sculpture Center manager and complete all required safety courses. Access is available during hours that do not conflict with ongoing courses.

Ceramics

  • Ample space for ambitious ceramics pieces

  • Clay and plaster casting

  • Two high performance Skutt Automatic Kilns

Cnc Digital Printing

  • ShopBot Handi Bot

    • Digitally-controlled power tool for cutting, drilling, carving, and many other machining operations - a first Universal Digital Power Tool (UPDT)

  • Epilog Helix Laser Printer / Engraver

    • Highest-quality engraving cutting of wood, acrylics, plastics, stone, and much more

  • Z Printer 450

    • Prints 3D color models in plaster

  • Stratasys Dimension 1200es

    • Prints in nine colors of real ABSplus thermoplastic

    • Prototype printing and modeling

Fibers and Materials Study Lab

  • Brother Entrepreneur Pro PR 1000E

    • 10 bobbin embroidery machine capable of 1000 stitches per minute

  • Brother Nouvelle 1500s

    • High-speed straight stitching machine, sewing up to 1,500 stitches per minute

    • Production of quilts as well as embroidery

  • HP Designjet Z3200

    • 12-ink HP Designjet, with new HP 73 Chromatic Red ink, delivers long-lasting, gallery-quality prints in black and white and color. It enables easy calibration and profiling with its embedded sprectrophotometer and also delivers great ink efficency

  • Brother Quattro Innovis 6700D

    • 670 built-in embroidery designs

    • Enhanced on-screen auto resizing of designs, which automatically reacalculates stitch count when a design is enlarged up to 200% or reduced down to 60%

Metal shop

  • Staff on duty to insure safety

  • Welding supplies

  • Puchasable materials in-house

Nature and Technology Lab

  • Saltwater and Freshwater tanks with living creatures

  • Carnivorous plants

  • Bio Bot 1

    • 3D bioprinter that builds 3D living tissues out of human cells. Beautifully designed, precision manufatured robot that prints cells and bioinks, bringing a new dimension to biology

  • AirClean 600 PCR Workstation

    • Deisgned to creat an application solution for manipulation and amplification of DNA and RNA

  • Multiple biology professionals to accommodate student needs/questions

Video and Sound Editing / Digital Design

  • Vinyl Express Q100 vinyl cutter for signs, lettering, and more

  • Up-to-date Final Cut Pro, Adobe Creative Suite, Logic Pro X sound editing, Microsoft Office Pro, and others

  • Digital rental cage equipped with Digital SLR Cameras, Video Projectors, Mac extensions, video cameras, camera and studio equipment

  • Green-screen technology and equipment

Woodshop

  • Multiple Bandsaws (Laguna LT14SUV)

  • Multiple Miter saws (DeWalt)

  • SawStop table saw

  • Purchasable lumber and supplies in-house