Exploring New Ground

Thanks to several forms of support, graduate studentNick Costantino is shaping his practice for the future.

Traveling to the west coast of Ireland with Robert Brinkerhoff, professor of Illustration and dean of Fine Arts, was the chance of a lifetime for Nick Costantino MFA 19

Recipient of the Peter St. Onge 09 Memorial Travel Award, a RISD Fellowship and a Materials Fund grant

PR. “Illustrating Irish Myths and Legends in the Burren was a wonderful, exploratory and philosophically grounding experience. I had wanted to visit Ireland for a long time, and I love reading and learning about different myths and legends,” said Costantino. The Peter St. Onge 09 Memorial Travel Award helped to pave the way. “The travel award was an incredible gift. I definitely would not have been able to travel abroad while earning my MFA without this financial assistance.

Costantino was drawn to the Irish fairy stories that he explored in his course and found inspiration in Celtic jewelry and the triple spiral inscribed in rock at the World Heritage site of Newgrange in the Boyne Valley in Ireland. His prints act as a map to navigate between the explainable world of fairy stories and the otherness of nature.

“The west coast of Ireland, and the Burren in particular, is an extraordinarily beautiful place and I took the many opportunities to walk the countryside, write, photograph, film, gaze and be. The Burren seeped into me, and the experience felt like a residency program where I was able

to try new things and approach the concepts from unexpected angles,” recalls Costantino. “As freeing as the experience was, it was also surprisingly grounding because I had the time to think about how I want to shape my practice in the future. Printmaking has a long history of political and social engagement, and I’d like my practice to be a part of that tradition.”

There is an incredible amount of opportunity at RISD, and I’m very thankful for the assistance I’ve received to take advantage of it all.

Costantino has been buoyed by the support he’s received during his graduate education. “I receive a RISD fellowship that reduces the amount I need to take out in loans and am also a teaching assistant in the Printmaking department through the Federal Work-Study program,” he notes. “I’ve also received grants through the Materials Fund, without which I would simply not have been able to push my class assignments to the places I wanted to take them. All of the work I showed in my final grad studio critique was made from materials acquired through this funding.”