This year seemed to be brimming full with multi-talented students and Emily Rodriguez is one of the most interesting. A member of the new SCAD ATL Musician’s Club, she is a musician, dancer, writer and animator. Find out some of her inspiration and how her other creative pursuits have fed into her work at SCAD:
Olivia Trotter: What is your major?
Emily Rodriguez: Animation, and a possible minor in Creative Writing.
OT: Where are you from?
ER: Born and raised in Miami Lakes, Florida.
OT: What are some of your biggest passions?
ER: Overall, when it comes to each of my passions (drawing, dance, animation, music, etc.) storytelling plays a big part! I see it in all its forms; through dance, creative writing, even as simple as a facial expression drawn in animation. I love creative writing and am fascinated by the idea of creating a story with characters that viewers can relate to!
OT: What instruments do you play? When did you start playing them? What inspired you to start playing them?
ER: Fun fact about me, I played piano for about 7 years in my childhood but now I can only play one song from memory! Currently I play the ukulele, which I picked up this past Fall 2016 quarter through YouTube tutorials. I think I secretly wanted to learn the ukulele for a long time but never had the time to do so. It wasn’t until I got to SCAD that I thought, “Why not?”
OT: When did you start dancing?
ER: I danced on and off throughout my childhood, but I fully committed to dance when I was 13 years old until I graduated high school. Initially, I was just taking classes for the exercise, but I soon grew to love the art form!
OT: How do you incorporate these other art forms into your visual art?
ER: I definitely try to apply my prior knowledge of dance to my studies in animation today. The whole idea of movement and the many different ways your body twists and turns while dancing always fascinated me. I dance on a competition team in high school, so we competed with all styles of dance, and I learned through my own body how to flow and transition between steps.
OT: What made you choose to pursue visual art as a career versus the other art forms you also enjoy?
ER: I’ve actually known since middle school that I wanted to pursue animation at SCAD. Imagine a 10-year-old version of me watching Disney movies and awards shows and saying, “That’s gonna be me one day!”, and then receiving an advertisement stating that SCAD was the #3 art school in the nation for Animation. I was sold! Animation has always been my end goal, but I do have to say that it took a backseat for a while as I discovered other art forms that I was passionate about.
OT: How has your SCAD experience affected the other forms of art you partake in?
ER: SCAD has definitely allowed me the creative freedom to incorporate all my other art forms into my projects. Although I may not be physically dancing anymore, I almost always link back my creative process to dance and try to find ways to sneak it into my assignments, especially since I’ve been drawing figures more frequently. As far as music goes, – you might not believe this – I never really sang in public before I joined the Musician’s Club here at SCAD. Something about being in a creative environment and with like-minded people gave me the courage to pursue other art forms I might not have considered before.
OT: What has been your most exciting project? (Can be dance, music, visual art related, personal project, etc.)
ER: I had a really great Drawing 2 professor last quarter, and for our final project we were allowed pretty much free reign with the materials we used to create it. The only rule was that it had to be an object or a figure that was lit with a light source. I ended up painting over some photos that my friend, Kenedee Hodges, took of me and used a posterization technique. It was a sort of breakthrough moment for me and I had so much fun creating it!
OT: Any fun facts about yourself?
ER: I can’t actually read music notes or chords! Basically, anything I do musically is learned by ear. When I played piano, I learned how to play Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” completely by ear! I have great musicality but I can’t for the life of me tell you where the actual note is on a music sheet.
OT: What are some of your career goals/ things you’d like to do before you die?
ER: I’m still working on the dream (it’s always pending as I gain new skills and learn new things about myself), but I would really love to work either on the big screen with an animation company, or on an animated TV show. I feel like those are becoming more popular nowadays, and the flexibility of telling a story over an entire series is really intriguing to me. I’d love to get in on all the action; the creative writing process, character concept art, the actual act of animating, etc. I’m still discovering what exactly I’d like to do in regards to my career, but I know it’ll be great! I can see myself at the Oscars accepting an award for a show or movie that I worked on for sure.
OT: What artists or people inspire you?
ER: Recently I’ve been pretty inspired by Guillermo Del Toro for his work creating the Netflix Original show Trollhunters with Dreamworks Animation! I always tell people about this because I love it so much. Again, the storytelling part of animation is a big thing for me and something that I’m very passionate about, especially when it’s well written and reels me in, and Del Toro has done an amazing job creating this whole new world with characters that I am emotionally invested in!
OT: Anything you would like to shamelessly plug?
ER: I would love to plug my two amazing photographer friends (who took all these beautiful photos of my face!) Savana Ogburn (@savanaogburn on Instagram) and Kenedee Hodges (@kenedeehodges on Instagram) who also attend SCAD Atlanta! Also my art account on Instagram (@artsyems_) which I just recently revived. I plan on posting more personal work over the summer break!