Spiraling

Dana Santillana

Waterford, CT

Concentration: 3D Animation

Advisor: Dan Pejril & Dennis Recchia

3D Animation
2 min 45 sec

In my animated short, Spiraling, a young woman struggles to study for a math test. She decides to push it aside and work on something she actually enjoys doing: drawing. But her current subject quickly proves to be too difficult to sketch. With a little help, she comes to realize that her worst obstacle could become her greatest tool.

I grew up believing that math and I did not mix. I admired it, but I was convinced that my brain just wasn't capable of understanding it and using it. I decided I was more of an artistic person, and in my eyes, math and art are worlds apart. But I have learned there is overlap where you least expect it. In his TED talk—Mathematics is the sense you never knew you had—mathematics teacher Eddie Woo says that—artists, musicians, sculptors, painters, cinematographers— they're all pattern creators (10:11). He discusses how things like rivers and tree branches are made up of geometric shapes called fractals, and how things like flowers grow out in a specific angle so as not to waste space. Artists capture this all the time. Some without even realizing it. I have started to view math as less like a class you get anxious over and more like something that could better help me see and appreciate the world around me.

Artist Bio

Dana Santillana is a senior at the University of Connecticut currently living in Waterford, Connecticut. She is pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Digital Media and Design with a concentration in 3D Animation and a Bachelor of Arts in Art. She has been doodling on everything and daydreaming since she was a young child. Her love of movies and books growing up has made it clear to her that making stories is what she wants to do most. As an artist, she dreams of combining her 3D skills and her experience in 2D animation and illustration to create stories that are fun, meaningful and visually pleasing.

https://www.dssg.art/
https://www.dssg.art/senior-project-1
https://www.linkedin.com/in/danasantillana


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