Tufts Blogs

If you’re thinking of applying to the BFA or Combined Degree program at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts, you may already know that SMFA requires a visual art portfolio with your application (we’ve got blogs on blogs on blogs about that), but you could be overlooking a small but mighty aspect of portfolio submission: captions.  
 
As artists, it can be tempting to let our work speak for itself. And when you have your first solo show, that's totally an option! But for now, we’re going to go ahead and recommend that you submit a caption with at least some of your portfolio pieces. Why? 
 
Remember that SMFA at Tufts is a school that – through an interdisciplinary studio curriculum and access to coursework and resources across the entire University -- encourages students to make work that’s driven by ideas, responsive to research, and bridges the technical and conceptual. And so, of course, that’s the kind of work we love to see in your portfolio. Whatever you love to make work about (fairytales, ocean conservation, social justice, original characters, family dynamics, social psychology, or anything else!) is what we really want to see. That’s why we don’t have any specific medium or subject-matter requirements for your portfolio and why we advise having a one-on-one portfolio review rather than giving you a pre-set list of portfolio recommendations. 
 
With this in mind, you’ll want to make sure that your portfolio expresses your ideas and intentions, and captions can help. The admissions committee really appreciates when captions help us understand the context and concepts behind your work, but there’s also some practical information you can tell us. Captions can include:   
  
Context and Concept: We recognize that not every piece in your portfolio will be the most conceptually motivated. You don’t have to make up a story for that still life of apples in a bowl that your teacher assigned you, if that’s what you’re choosing to submit. But for the pieces that do have a story to tell, we want to hear it! Tell us how your perspective and skills informed the technical decisions you made, and how those in turn informed the concept you’re trying to communicate. Connect what we’re seeing (your technical decisions) with what you hope we take away (your conceptual intentions).  

Medium and Process: Art experts will be reviewing your portfolio, so don’t worry about describing your process in detail. Just let us know if there’s something unique or unexpected. Did you utilize found objects to create your installation? Did you write a neural network code that creates its own unique visual imagery? Are these oil-painting lookalikes actually AI? Did you collaborate with a group of friends? Is this one of a series of 100?  

Dimensions: Scale can be impactful and was an artistic choice you made, so help us appreciate the enormity of the 3x5’ drawing or the fragility of that 3" tall ceramic vessel. 
 
Let us give you some examples using artwork you might recognize, as if the artists were submitting a portfolio to SMFA at Tufts: 

Untitled S. 407, 1952 
54” x 15” x 15” 
This metal sculpture hangs from the ceiling, where light can cast shadow through its transparent form. The woven lines in this series of sculptures were inspired by my childhood growing up on a farm, where I would drag my toes off the back of the horse-drawn soil leveler as it moved to create drawings in the soil. 

Guernica, 1937 
11’ x 25’6”  
I created this oil painting after learning about the bombing of the Basque town, Guernica, in my home country. The horse, representing the people of Guernica, is centered in a large grayscale composition whose chaos and confusion mirrors the aftermath of the bombing.  

See Alice Jump, 2011 
76” x 113” 
In this series of paintings, I use vibrant colors to portray icons who have played a significant role in culture, highlighting Black achievement and success. In this composition, Alice Coachman, the first Black woman to win an Olympic gold medal, soars over the houses in the background, creating a visual metaphor for how she overcame barriers growing up in the segregated South.  

Cat and Flowers, 1869 
7” x 6” 
Etching done from observation. 
 
We hope this guide to portfolio captions has been helpful! You can read more about the role of writing in an art school application here: 
Part 1: Letters of Recommendation 
Part 2: Short-Answer Questions 
 
P.S. Those artists were Ruth Asawa, Pablo Picasso, Henry Taylor, and Edouard Manet.