Does an MFA Make You a Great Artist — or Just an Artist?

Does an MFA make you a great artist — or does it simply give you the title? Ritu Raj reflects on art as a lifelong practice of becoming, not a credential.

Migration, 4ft x 4ft, Ephemeral Atmosphere, 2020

In the art world, the letters MFA often carry weight. They can open doors, provide access to certain galleries, residencies, or conversations. They can offer frameworks, histories, critiques, and communities. But as someone who came to art through lived experience rather than academic pathways, I often reflect on the deeper question: Does an MFA make you a great artist — or does it simply give you the title of “artist”?

From my perspective, neither degrees nor titles make you an artist in the truest sense.
They can give you credentials. They might provide structure. But they cannot give you the raw hunger to create. They cannot teach you how to stand in front of a blank canvas and listen, how to risk, how to fail, how to stay open to what wants to emerge.

Being an artist is not a diploma.
It is a commitment.
It is a way of seeing, feeling, and engaging with the world that no institution can fully bestow upon you.

I honor those who pursue MFAs. I respect the discipline and the dialogue that can emerge in such settings. But I also believe that art is a lifelong, self-directed practice of becoming — one that unfolds both inside and far beyond the academy. The studio, the street, the desert, the inner life — these are all classrooms, too.

In the end, it is not the MFA that makes someone a great artist.
It is the relentless act of making, reflecting, evolving, and showing up for the work day after day, regardless of recognition, letters, or titles.
The art will reveal the artist.
The commitment will reveal the greatness.