By Ashley Dean, News Staff

Inspiration can become scarce and creativity stifled when student artists are confined to one city and one school, but Northeastern’s Department of Art + Design has a remedy abroad.
Professor Mira Cantor has led 14 art and design students on a trip to Ballyvaughan, Ireland each summer for the past four years. For one month, they are immersed in the culture of the small, isolated Irish town where many people still speak Gaelic. They take part in town activities, experience Irish music, theatre and story telling, take sight-seeing trips and of course, create art.
‘Traveling is a way of jolting the imagination,’ Cantor said. ‘Opening your eyes to a new culture stimulates you in a way that you react.’
Cantor said a trip like this is one of the most important things students can do because it exposes them to new cultures, making them tolerant and understanding world citizens. It brings them closer to other people, including the other students on the trip, she said.
‘It forces students into a shared experience where they have to deal with one another,’ Cantor said.
During the first week, students participated in outdoor art exercises directed by Cantor. They made rock rubbings, drew landscapes and created a sculpture from objects found on the beach. Once that was done, the students decided on a medium and concept for projects of their own.
‘I did some research on the botany of the area and through [folklore] I created this book called ‘Room to Grow,” sophomore graphic design major Rachel Shatkin said.
Shatkin said the inspiration for her project came from a nature hike. The guide told Irish folklore as he pointed out different plants, how they got there and when they grow.
Loraine Perone has made the trip twice ‘- last year as a teaching assistant, and the previous year as a student.
‘As a student I did mixed-media paper drawings,’ Perone said. ‘The second time I did a painting based on a sculpture.’
Nature and culture aren’t the only draws to this trip though. The experience also allows students an opportunity they don’t have at Northeastern:’ their own studio space.
‘You can come in and react to [your work] every day,’ Cantor said. ‘The consistency of a place to make art is really important.’
At school, students usually need to store their work where it won’t be in the way of the other students with whom they share studio space. But Cantor and Perone said those aren’t ideal conditions for creating.
‘When you put it on the wall, it’s almost like a living thing where every day you visit it again,’ Perone said.
The program is headed into its fifth year with a trip planned for this summer that offers the same cultural and creative experience.
‘It’s exciting to see what develops out of this Irish landscape,’ Cantor said. ‘I’m always surprised. Imaginations never cease to amaze me.’