Member Monday - Tanya Saikaly, Class of 2020

When applying to dental school, most people don’t know what to put in the box that says “what activities have you done to demonstrate your manual dexterity?” However, our featured member this week, Tanya Saikaly, had plenty to put in this box given her love for art and painting that she discovered in undergrad. Tanya is a D2 from St. Augustine, FL and got her start in the arts while attending the University of Florida for undergrad. According to Tanya, “one of the organizations I was involved with had a social at the arts and crafts center at the student center and I decided to go to check out the scene! I quickly learned that they were open every day of the week and had several different activities, some of which included painting, ceramics, and even jewelry making. After the social, I started going on my own, painting different items to get fired in the kiln, and my senior year, I took the ceramics class, as well as the jewelry making class.” Soon after, she began painting her own canvases and doing crafts at home.

Painting has become a great stress reliever for Tanya. She says that her favorite part of painting is how relaxing it is. “Whenever I start a project, I put all my attention to it and that allows me to get my mind off school and all the stress associated with life,” says Tanya. “If I’m crafting alone, I tend to put my headphones on and listen to music. If someone joins me, I turn the evening into a social time!”

Not only are Tanya’s crafts beautiful to look at but they are useful too! Tanya says her favorite memory of making art is being able to use the items she has made. “I have two mugs that I’m constantly using for coffee or tea and whenever I use them, it brings back great memories of college and making them.”

It can be difficult to make time for fun things like arts and crafts in dental school but Tanya feels it is worth it to set aside time for stress relievers like painting. “I try to make time for arts and crafts whenever possible,” says Tanya. “Much of what I’ve done lately has been through painting canvases, because it’s easy to complete at home and I can always get a good stopping point. I try to divide my free time evenly between crafting, cooking/baking, working out, and studying. So if I use my time to bake, I try to bake something that I can decorate to get that ‘arts and crats’ feeling.”

​As we’ve said in the past, making time for activities outside of school is incredibly important for maintaining proper mental health. Dental school can be daunting and if we do not set aside time to do things that make us happy we may start to burn out very early in our studies. If you are interested in getting started with arts and crafts, Tanya says do it! “Dentistry allows us to add our own personal artistic style to our work so now is the time to master anything, and everything, related to art. Art allows us to pay closer attention to the small details and I think this is very important when it comes to all restorative procedures we do in this field.” As dentists, we are also artists, so don’t be afraid to bring out your artistic side!

Author: Kelsey Gwin, Class of 2021

Examples of the beautiful and creative works of art Tanya has made!