“My journey to RISD CE began by chance and I didn’t expect it to become such a significant part of my life. While I was living in California working as a makeup and special effects artist for film and TV, I began making jewelry as a hobby. Soon after moving back to Rhode Island, I pursued the Jewelry + Light Metals certificate program as well as the Product Development + Manufacturing certificate program. The opportunity to become an instructor fell into my lap. Over the last couple of years I have been building and teaching classes such as mask making, prosthetic design, armor design, mold making, jewelry design, and crown & helmet design. Becoming an instructor was an unexpected opportunity. In this case, I feel RISD chose me!

The most difficult course to design so far is our mask making course for teens. The challenge is finding the perfect balance between delivering the right amount of content to students without putting too much on their plate for the time we are limited to.

The best part of RISD is that everybody you work with is so wildly different. You can give the same assignment to 20 people, and each of those 20 people will take that assignment and create their own world around it. Whether I’m teaching or attending a class, I always feel energized and refreshed after a day of working alongside people who have such unique and different perspectives.”

—Stefania Medeiros, RISD CE instructor and student

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