Zia and the Maine College of Art

Zia's month at the Maine College of Art in Portland is almost up; she comes home tomorrow. Who could believe that four weeks could go by so quickly? It's not that we didn't miss her; we did. But because we each spent a day with her during that time, we actually saw her more this month than we usually do. Zia's circadian rhythms are so reversed from the norm, that between her working full time at the Thompson House, sleeping all day & staying up all night, we saw her more this month while she was away than we usually do when she lives at home. Go figure ... I guess she should go away more often!


It was a fabulous month for our daughter. She made lots of friends, got a taste for living away from home, and learned a LOT. We’ve always known she had talent, but at MECA, her artistic abilities got validated by unbiased and credentialed staff members, which carried a lot more weight than the ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ of her just friends and family! During one of her painting classes, the instructor had the students create the ‘essence’ of various objects in just 30 seconds, using only 5 brush strokes. At the end of the class, the professor had all the students lay their work out on the floor and she picked what she considered to be the 4 best. (Three of them were Zia’s!).

A reporter for the Portland paper contacted the school recently and wanted to do a story about their Pre-College program. They asked the administration to recommend a student that they could interview, and guess what? They picked Zia! The story hasn’t gone to press yet, but yesterday on the reporter’s personal blog, was this paragraph:
“So I went on some more story hunts and ended up at the Maine College of Art, or MECA. They have a pre-college summer program, so I photographed two students, Zia and Olivia. The two girls were fabulous, but my photographs were rather weak. We’ll see where the project goes.”

Last night our daughter called home. Sad that the program was ending, she had spent most of the afternoon at the Admissions office, trying to discover what the process might be to apply as a full-time college student. They had been so impressed with both our daughter and her work, that they basically gave her the thumbs up for being admitted in January if she wants to go. Now to all those mountains of financial aid papers … Ugh.

On Saturday (while I’m climbing Mount Washington for Seek the Peak) my husband and our son Josh will go to her art show and then on to her graduation, culminating with unpacking her apartment and bringing her home. We couldn’t have hoped for a better experience!



.