After graduating from high school, Verostko studied at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, where he received a diploma in illustration in 1949. In 1950 he entered the Saint Vincent Archabbey scholastic program for monks that included entrance to Saint Vincent College, monastic vows in 1954, a BA in philosophy in 1955,four years of Theology in the St. Vincent Major Seminary and ordination as a priest in 1959. While Verostko remained a monk attached to Saint Vincent Archabbey, he pursued graduate work in the early 1960s at other institutions, first in an MFA program at Pratt Institute in 1961, then studies in art history at New York University and Columbia University from 1961 to 1962. Verostko then traveled to Paris, where he studied printmaking at Stanley William Hayter's Atelier 17 from 1962 to 1963, as well as took courses at the École du Louvre and visited religious sites. Much of Verostko's work in Paris "pursued visual manifestations of inner experience that transcended rational observation". For many of these 'automatic' works he maintained a private notebook of 'experience states' related to their execution". Perhaps unsurprisingly, Hayter worked very closely with the Surrealists, exploring semi-automated methodologies for image-making in the belief that its source was the irrational. Hayter also associated with many of the forerunners of the Algorists, among them Le Corbusier. Many of the themes Verostko would explore in his life's work - EXAMPLES - emerged in this time period in and around Paris.
