7/25/2021

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Hello, this is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to, or watching Radio Maine. And today I have with me Aniella Salko who is a rising second year student at the Ringling College of Art and Design. It's great to have you here. 

Aniella Salko:

Thanks for having me. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, this is really a pleasure for me because I'm getting the opportunity to talk to somebody who kind of went in a specific direction that not a lot of high school students go in, which is animation. 

Aniella Salko:

Yes. It's been quite a journey I have to say for sure. Yes. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How, how old were you when you realized that this is something that you thought you would want to do? 

Aniella Salko:

 It's a hard question to answer actually, because I loved Disney from a very young age and that's definitely what pushed me towards art, but it never clicked in my head. It didn't click in my head for a very long time that art was actually a career that you could go into.  There's a lot of doctors in my family and I was a good student. I took honors classes. I took AP classes. I was always looking to have good grades and excel academically. And I had no idea that this was something I could really pursue. And I think it was my sophomore year of high school where it clicked. And I was like, I can actually do something I love as a career. And I did RISD pre college, the Rhode Island School of Design between my sophomore and junior year. And it was a six week program, it was intense. It was a college program and I loved it and fell in love with the idea of going to art school and actually pursuing my dreams. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I obviously know your father as a fellow family physician. I know your mother, and I know your grandfather was also a family physician. I know your grandmother who worked with your grandfather, so you're right. There's a lot of medicine in that family. Do you think it was hard for your parents to kind of wrap their minds around this idea of art as a career initially? 

Aniella Salko:

Yes, they were always supportive. I think at the beginning I had a lot of phases growing up as most kids do. I wanted to be a scientist and I wanted to be a doctor and a surgeon. And, you know, I went all around with what I wanted to do. And when I said I wanted to be an artist, and started looking at going to a specific art school, they were like, that's a lot of money to put towards a very specific idea. So we talked a lot about it and they kept trying to push me towards a liberal arts program where I could do something else, but also have art in that with me. And I guess I stuck with it for so long. And I showed that I was dedicated and that I kept working towards the idea of going to an art school, building a portfolio, and then doing that college program that they were ended up, you know, letting me. I'm very lucky they could have easily been like, this is not something we could do, but they were awesome. They definitely pushed me to keep pursuing it. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I also know that your mother has some artistic inclinations as evidenced by the work I see her doing on Instagram. Do you think that this inclination herself allowed her to have more space and flexibility with you? 

Aniella Salko:

Yes, it was really funny because once I started doing more and more art and producing a lot and showing improvement and doing all these cool things, both my parents wanted to do it with me. And there've been many arguments about where my artistic talent comes from because they both sort of got a real interest in it after I really started. And so my mom started doing her calligraphy and she does absolutely beautiful things with it. She's like an amazing talent. And my dad likes to do quick sketches. He's always begging me to do charcoal drawings with him and all that stuff. So yes, I think that they really started to get into it which let them kind of understand why I loved it. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Okay. Well, Dave, I'm apologizing upfront. I'm not trying to give all the credit to Jen, but I do know you're a great doctor. So we're going to give you both credit for raising a wonderful person, but back to you. I love the fact that when we asked you to bring your art in, you brought in kind of the old fashioned, I'm going to do pencil and paper, but then you brought in a journal or a sketchbook that had more colors than you brought in your iPad. And you have to have some facility with all of these different ways of approaching art these days, right? 

Aniella Salko:

Oh, for sure. Yes. I did a lot of traditional art in high school because that was what was available. And then, especially during COVID and doing a lot of classes online my freshman year, I did so much digital art and I kind of like to keep them both in balance because there's a whole different skill set, but it's super important to have both. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So tell me what some of the differences are. 

Aniella Salko:

 I find it much easier to sketch traditionally, to take an actual pencil. It's much easier for me to work on ideas in a sketchbook and be loose and have my pencil and have almost like it's like having complete control over the work and digitally I do my modeling, which is part of the animation process digitally.  I do a lot of digital paintings and stuff, and it's nice to have something portable, something that I can work on wherever I go. And they're great for planning and moving things around, so once I have something on paper, I can import it to a digital platform, whatever I'm using and continue to mess around with it and add color. It's a great way to experiment without having to worry about making mistakes that you can’t  undo. So they both have their pros and cons, but I love using both and switching back and forth and having both of them at my beck and call whenever I need them. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So with this right here, you're drawing a French bulldog is my understanding. And there's various pages of your French bulldog, or I guess it could be also a friend's French bulldog or somebody you follow on Instagram, their French bulldog, but it's a French bulldog nonetheless, but with different kinds of expressions, one of them sleeping, one of them is looking at us.  What is it about the French bulldog that you find so endearing? 

Aniella Salko:

Well, we do have a COVID puppy. We got him last May. His name is Okin and he's a French bulldog. And I am absolutely in love with him. He is my best friend. I love Zazu, our Bernedoodle as well, but Okin and I have a special connection and he is just adorable and he makes all these funny faces and we have endless photos of him doing the most ridiculous things. And I think I started drawing those towards the end of my second semester. So finals were starting to pick up and I was busy doing work on the computer all the time and I needed a break and I needed to do something I loved. And I thought of my dog, who I missed very much. And I started, I looked up photos from other dogs that I followed on Instagram who had funny expressions and just sat down and relaxed and drew the French bulldogs. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So does this feed into the animation idea? Because I know that a lot of animated films have animals in them. 

Aniella Salko:

It's super important to do as much observational drawing as you can, of anything and everything. Like I do a lot of still lifes with random objects. I'm doing cafe drawings where I draw people, animals, practicing different expressions that all feeds into the animation process because you need to know how things work and how people live and how things move and you know, how they react with light and shadow and color. All that stuff is super, super important. So I like to practice doing little sketches and I do this kind of stuff all the time. Sometimes I do it digitally too, and it's a really nice way to get a study of something to better understand it so that I can relate it to an animation or create a character. Because now I know how something feels. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How does the still life process now differ from what we all think of as still lifes like the you know, the apple, the dead flower and the pitcher of water, you know, that they used to have paintings of. How would you do this when you were in school? 

Aniella Salko:

I think especially when I was in high school and I had my art classes, there was a push for the still life to be finished which is not a bad thing to have. Cause it's you really, the farther you get into a drawing or a painting or wherever you're doing it the more you notice about it and you can really delve into texture and the lighting and the color and the shadow. And I think that when I started college, I learned about the benefit of a quick, still life where you don't really care how it turns out. You're just looking and trying to capture literally the essence of something in a quick sketch. So in like my figure drawing class, we did everything from, we did ten second figures where you have 10 seconds to draw a whole person. Like that's ridiculous. But you learn a lot from even just a little bit. So I think that when you look at the traditional still lifes and you see the perfectly painted, you know, display of fruit, you know, there's so much more beauty behind something quick and you still learn a ton from it. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What was your favorite film growing up? If it was something in the let's just say, what was your favorite Disney film growing up? Because it must have really called to you if you decided this is what you wanted to do with your life. 

Aniella Salko:

When I was really little, Finding Nemo was my favorite and I begged my parents, I've been told multiple times a day to watch “Mamo”. That was what I said. I don't really remember asking to watch Nemo, I think that was a little bit before my memory starts to kick in. So the one that I really remember loving and wanting to watch over and over again was Sleeping Beauty. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So that's interesting because you have kind of a newer animation, but then you have one that's really a classic. What do you think drew you to Sleeping Beauty in particular? 

Aniella Salko:

I was a princess lover for sure. I loved the dresses. I loved the shoes, the crowns, everything. And I think it's really interesting too, having a Pixar 3D animated film, the Finding Nemo one is being a favorite while also having a traditionally drawn classic golden age Disney drawing me in. And I think it shows that both digital and traditional side to me, where I always want to have both with me. And when I think about what I want to do in the future, the ability to be able to draw traditionally like the Sleeping Beauty film, and also be able to create 3D models and do a more, you know, 3D kind of comes off as an almost more realistic type of film style. It's really cool. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

When you're a first year art student at the Ringling College of Art and Design, what does your course load look like? 

Aniella Salko:

It's intense for sure.  It's funny because I thought that the first semester was intense. I didn't think it was too bad, but it was a lot of work. And then second semester hit and I was like, oh, I had no idea what was coming for me. Like this is so much work. I managed, I'm proud to say to not pull a single all-nighter all year, which I might be the only one. I'm definitely the only one that I know because I was super dedicated and I wanted to get my work done and we were stuck in the dorm all the time because of COVID. So I did my work, but yes, the course load, there's projects all the time. There's always something to be working on and something to be learning or researching or looking at. I spent so much time at my desk drawing and experimenting with new programs and trying to figure out how some of these new programs worked, which was tough. And yes,  it's a lot of work. It's an all day, all night kind of thing. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So, because of COVID you did most of your classes kind of remotely where you were actually in your dorm room, but taking classes through zoom or some similar platform. So a lot of this was kind of really self-directed wasn't it? 

Aniella Salko:

Yes, it was hard because we were limited. My classes were all about two hours and 45 minutes long which you would think would be enough time to get a lot of stuff done, but it really wasn't. My first semester I had two classes that were in-person, my second semester I only had one. So it was tough because there was limited interaction with a teacher. Normally you're in a studio and you're working and the teacher would kind of be roaming around and kind of looking over your shoulder and being, oh, no, no, no, you're not doing that right, I can see you. And they can't see working, which I think caused a lot of problems where you had to kind of pick stuff up as you go. And the limited interaction with the teacher was tough because you're looking for critique and you're looking for help and it's hard to convey the problems over zoom, but overall, I think it worked pretty well. I still learned a lot. I still gained a lot from all my classes and I feel relatively confident going into next year. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Will it all be back in person again? 

Aniella Salko: 

Yes, it will. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So one of the things that there's been a lot of discussion around is how this has interrupted the development of people as they're learning, you know, whether they're younger people, you know, in elementary school or whether there are people your age who are in college. Do you feel like not having a traditional first year class interaction held you back in any way? Or do you feel like it was somehow beneficial or kind of a little of both? 

Aniella Salko:

I think it's a little bit of both. I think it was tough, not really meeting people.  I was so excited to finally be in a community of people that were just like me, because I was kind of the only art kid in high school. There were a couple others that took some art classes with me, but it was kind of lonely sometimes. So I was really excited to get to meet a ton of people that understood. And I didn't really get that experience. I made a few friends and that was great. And I love my roommate to pieces. She's my favorite person. But yes, it's tough not being able to have that sense of comradery too, to be like, “I have no idea what I'm doing” and somebody else going, “oh no me neither.” So there was that side, but having classes online took a lot of the pressure off of freshman year. There were so many other stressors from COVID wanting to stay safe and worrying about my family and all that kind of stuff. That being able to be in my dorm without having to rush around campus or worry about where my classroom was or if I was on time, like I had 8:30 classes in the morning, so the ability to just roll out of bed and go to my desk was really nice. Beause I didn't have to book it across campus for an early class, but yes, it had its pros and its cons. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What was the most challenging class that you took this last year? 

Aniella Salko:

Second semester, I had my first 3D design class where we were learning this program called Maya, which is where you model, rig, and animate to create a film or a short film or whatever you're working on. And it was a huge jump for me to make. I'd never worked in a program like that. It's completely different. It's a huge, massive program. It crashes all the time. There's always little problems that you have to figure out, and not having that in-person experience made it difficult because my teacher couldn't watch me work and see what I was doing. And I felt like I was missing a lot too, because he'd explained stuff to other kids outside of class through email and then not tell everybody else, but we were expected to know it. So it was a little bit of a mess. And we went from zero to 60 with this program, like first day we were already in it making objects and learning how to light things. And then by the second class we were creating whole scenes. Like it was intense and it was confusing and very rough because I'd never used anything like that. And it's very left-brained so when you're doing everything else on the right side and all of a sudden you're trying to do geometry to make things work. It's very difficult. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes. As you're talking, I'm thinking to myself, oh my goodness. You know, we think of art as being something that's kind of creative. And as you say, you draw from one side of your brain, but you're talking about something that almost sounds architectural or math, science, all of those things. So you really are drawing on all of your skills as being the good student that you were in high school and having lots of different talents in lots of areas. Did that surprise you? 

Aniella Salko:

Yes, a lot. Because it's kind of rewarding because I'm taking all these super difficult classes and remembering all the stress that I went through to take all of the honors and AP classes that I took in high school and know that it's paying off at least a little bit now is nice. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That's a great point. I mean, I remember taking classes many, many years ago and thinking I will never use this because the direction I'm going in, it seems like that's not going to happen. But then it's interesting over time, how you come back and you're like, oh wait a minute. I guess that that was useful. And it helped my brain in some way, but sometimes it is hard to push through while you're kind of in the middle of it.  You have a few brothers and sisters.  Do you think any of them will follow an artistic path as a result of your willingness to do that yourself? 

Aniella Salko:

I hope so. I think that I've done a lot to kind of help show them that they can pursue their dreams and think outside the box and not just kind of go with the flow and be pushed towards something just because it's what everybody else does. I know that my sister is looking to be a nurse, but she loves it. I can definitely tell that that's the place for her. And I see a little bit of artistic ability in her. Like she does like to doodle and she's just redecorating her room now too. So she sees a little bit of design or at least that's what I see when I see little things happening with her and my brothers too. James loves to sketch. He used to do a ton of little doodles and he'd give them to me. And Nathan even more so. We'll take one of those, learn to draw books and he'll draw little animals. And I love seeing him do that because it's so important to balance both sides of your brain. It's so, so important. And it's tough when, especially with them doing online and you know, they were in person, but you know, it was a rough year. So it's nice to see that they're balancing both sides of the brain and really developing as they go through school. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What are you doing the summer between your first and second years of art school? 

Aniella Salko:

I work at the Portland Yacht Club right now, which is a lot of fun. I really liked that job.  My sister and I actually both worked the same job and we switch off shifts. So we're cold line cooks. We make like salads and desserts and do the cold soups and all that kind of stuff. It's a lot of fun and it's really good money, which is nice. Because I need to save up for all the art supplies and food that I'm going to have to buy next year.  But besides that, doing commissions. People will ask me to do portraits or drawings or any of that kind of stuff. And I'll do that for them. And this is still kind of up in the air, but I'm in the process of selling a painting right now. And the man that I'm selling it to might be asking me to do two more. So I have that to look forward to too. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, tell me about your commissions. 

Aniella Salko:

I do have a Facebook page and I have my mom to thank for that because I am not good with Facebook. So she's showing me how to set up a business page and she had all of her mom friends come follow me, which was great. Gave me an amazing head start.  And people messaged me and I've done greeting cards for people, I've designed like greeting cards that they can print out. And I've done portraits, I've done animals, I've done characters for people. I've done all kinds of stuff. And my rates kind of depend on what I'm doing, how long it takes and all that kind of stuff. And it's a lot of fun because I get to do a lot of different things and I love doing that kind of stuff for people. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So this piece that we're looking at right here, does this kind of fall in line with the greeting card idea or what were you working on with this?

Aniella Salko:

This was another one that I did in the middle of the semester when things started to get busy and I was stuck in all these projects, stuff that I'd been assigned to do. And I wanted to do something for myself. I like doing sketchbook pieces that give me reminders. So especially this one over here, “your comfort zone will kill you” is kind of a thing that I like to keep in mind because going outside the box and experimenting is super important because you learn a lot from your mistakes, you learn more from your mistakes than your successes. So always remembering that not being afraid to make mistakes is important. And I love bumblebees.  I actually have tattoos of two bumblebees and I found that poem that I think I had read in high school and I just thought it was beautiful. And I had little stamps and I made little stamps and added words all around it and just had fun. It was a lot of stuff that I didn't really think through. I just needed to get out of the project and assignments mode and do something for myself. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So it sounds like what you're describing is something that I hear a lot of artists describe, which is the simultaneous need to do the practical and kind of come up with the assignments or do the things that make money and also stay true to your own creative self. 

Aniella Salko:

Yes, that's definitely true. I've seen a lot of my friends from school who are artists go through this, where you get so stuck in the, this is what I've been told to do mode where you don't do anything for yourself. And as I went through school, as stressful as it got with the workload and stuff, I never found myself not wanting to draw and not wanting to create something. I always was itching to do something. So when I got to that point where I was sick of a project or just done with school, pulling out a sketchbook or just my iPad or anything and doodling, or I like to watch shows or movies and draw the people from it, draw characters and all that kind of stuff. And it really reminds me of how much I love what I'm doing. And it kind of puts it, be like, okay, now I'm ready to do the work. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So what shows are you watching that inspire you to do these doodles? 

Aniella Salko:

I've watched all kinds of different things.  I have been watching American Horror Story a lot lately.  And I haven't found many people who actually watched the show. At least none of my friends are really interested in it, but it's got a lot of scary core character kind of stuff. And I just get fascinated by some of these weirdly complex, but terrifying characters. And I find that weirdly enough, you wouldn't really think it, but they're very inspiring when you think about the story and the different plot lines that they have, and these multidimensional characters, it really inspires me to create my own. And I use them as for my own like doodles and characters. And I definitely got to get a lot of out of you wouldn't think it, but out of watching American Horror Story, 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But that is interesting Because you're describing, I mean, the complexity of it, is not something you'd think about when you think about animation. 

Aniella Salko:

Yes, that's definitely true. I have a master movie list at home where I've written down like hundreds, literally hundreds of movies that are on my list of things that I want to watch. And some of them are good and some of them are like not good movies, but you learn, you know, like I said, before, you learn more from your mistakes and seeing other people's mistakes to definitely influence you. Like, oh, I really don't like that. Or I do really like this. It kind of also influences my own style, figuring out what I like and what I don't like. So I can figure out how I want to draw what I want to create, all that kind of stuff. So I watch a lot of movies and TV shows and I do a lot of analyzing and drawing and I pull inspiration from all of these different sources. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You and I were talking earlier, I was asking about something that represented your style or some would say, you know, finding your voice and you said, well, I'm still working on that piece. So what has that been like for you? Are you finding that that's unusual as an almost second year art student? Or are you finding that a lot of other people are in the same boat? 

Aniella Salko:

I seem like I feel a little bit lonely in my boat over here. Honestly, I haven't found many people that are struggling as much as I have. When I actually went to my RISD pre college program, I was one of the younger people in it because I was on the lower end of the age range of people they accepted. And I kept seeing all of these amazing artists that were just a couple of years older than me that had these really cool styles. And I was kind of sitting there like I don't have that yet. I don't know what I'm doing. And a teacher actually, I confronted a teacher about it and I was like can you help me? Because I don't know what I'm doing. And he said that it was actually a good thing because being versatile and being able to do a lot of different things without being stuck in the same mode is really good. 

Aniella Salko:

And that helped me get through the rest of high school and definitely my freshman year where I was like, I'm able to do a realistic still life and I'm able to do a stylized still life. I'm able to put personal little artsy quirks and things, but also keep it super realistic. So being versatile is also super important when you're applying for jobs because when you're working on movies, you have to copy the style of whatever the movie is. So I'm not too concerned about where I am, at least not anymore, but I would like to be able to find myself a little bit in my art and figure out who I am. And it's a journey that I'm excited to continue as I go through school. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'm really interested by this conversation in part, because it kind of reminds me of a conversation that I recently had with one of our artists at the Portland Art Gallery, whose name is Jack Gable. And he's quite a bit older than you. Sorry, Jack. But he also has an art school background and he also did a very technical job and he also does commissions, but he also does his own thing. So as an artist, he absolutely sounds like he's followed a similar path. He's just a few years ahead of you.  Which I really enjoyed hearing about, because I think that sometimes we do think if you give up your creativity, that's what you need to do in order to be able to do commissions for example. And what I'm hearing from you and what I heard from him is that that's not really true. You just have to kind of cultivate both sides of your brain. 

Aniella Salko:

Yes. I think that's definitely true. It's definitely helped me a lot with my projects. I feel like I've produced so many different things, and it's nice to see a variety. I just, sometimes I just wish that I could line up a bunch of my artwork and know that it's all mine. Sometimes I feel like if I made a gallery of all the stuff that I've done, you'd think it's done by a bunch of different people, which isn't a bad thing. It's a good skill to have, or so I've been told, but I am really looking to find doing some more experimentation and finding my own style.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Or maybe your own multiple styles.

Aniella Salko:

That might be true.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Which would actually also be okay. Do you feel like there's a lot of pressure in this day and age to kind of specialize in something in particular and go into one particular direction? 

Aniella Salko:

It's hard because there's so much pressure on teenagers to know what we want to do. And I think it is true and that's why I think it's so hard to look outside the box for careers. I don't know a lot of people who are artists and nobody else in my graduating class went to art school. So there's a lot of pressure to know exactly what you want to do and go to school for that because you're spending so much money to go to school. You better know what you're spending it for. And I see this from my sister too. She's going to be a senior and she's trying to figure out exactly where she wants to be exactly where she wants to go. I think in the art world, it's a little bit more difficult because I know a lot of artists who do a lot of different things, they do commissions, but they also have a job and they teach so you can do a bunch of different things within your own career. So I think it depends on who you ask because I know that for me too, I'm doing computer animation, but I'm hoping that once I graduate and get a job that I will be able to do more story and character development, because that's more what I lean towards. So it's like a direction within a direction, because this is the best way to get there, but it's not exactly what I want to do. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I was thinking about this story idea because you just described watching all these different movies. And so for you again, it's kind of another thread that you have to wander around after you have to be understanding narrative and plot lines and characters. And that's really, I find that really interesting because you have to be thinking about things in a really multidimensional way. 

Aniella Salko:

Yes. It's a lot of fun too. Being able to come up with my own stories and, you know, literally take something that I dream about and turn it into something that could be a short film or a little story or anything like that. I love creating my own characters too. And coming up with a backstory, my dad has definitely influenced that too, telling me bedtime stories when I was a kid. But I do really get a lot out of all the movies and TV shows that I watch, because there's so much that you can glean from even the simple stories and learning what you like and what you don't like. And different kinds of stories. There's a million different genres out there that people will experiment with. So it's really cool to see what people come up with. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Aniella, how can people find you if they would like to maybe explore a commission or just kind of watch your career and see where you end up heading? 

Aniella Salko:

I do have a Facebook page and I do have an Instagram. They're both under the same username. So it's my name, @aniellasalkoart.  You can find me on Facebook or on Instagram. And I also have an art email, which is aniellasalkoart@gmail.com. So if anybody contacts me through any of those, I can find you and we can talk about it. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I have really enjoyed my conversation with you here today. And I don't want to sound like the person from the future, but one thing I've learned from doing these interviews with artists is you absolutely are not alone. You just haven't kind of caught up with the people yet, but maybe when you go back to school and everybody's in person, you'll find that to be true. And I'm just, I'm really blown away by your dedication and your talent, and I hope that you have a long and happy career ahead of you. I know that you do actually.

Aniella Salko:

Thank you so much. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I have been speaking with Aniella Salko, who is a rising second year student at the Ringling College of Art and Design. I encourage you to go look her up on Instagram or Facebook or send her an email. And I'm pretty sure we're going to be hearing from her in the future, so there's a lot of good stuff to come. Thank you for watching Radio Maine. I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle.