Sometimes it’s valuable to know what you don’t want. That’s how Selden artist Paulina Trzonkowska ended up with thousands of followers on social media.
Trzonkowska attended Stony Brook University but dropped out when she realized college was not for her. In the little over two years at Stony Brook University, Trzonkowska went through three different majors. She started as a pre-med student but quickly found that wasn’t for her. So Trzonkowska changed to a health science major. This, according to Trzonkowska, “was a little easier but I also didn’t like it.” She said a career in health was not her passion, just something her family urged her to do. Her last major was studio art but she felt it was useless since she had the materials and skills to do art on her own.
And that’s exactly what she did.
Going by the name “sillyartstuff,” Trzonkowska, 23, now has a huge following on Tik Tok and Instagram with her use of 3D art techniques. Her most recent work is a massive board of a variety of different flowers and natural elements.
While her Tik Tok account is about a year old, she did not gain mass attention from the public until June 2023. Since then, she has let her “creative” followers, as she put it, give her ideas about what to put on the flower board. “I really don’t think I would have done moss if people weren’t harassing me for it, so people are very creative online,” she said.
She created the large board of 3D flowers because she had a lot more flowers around. “I kind of hoard them so I have like this whole rack of flowers and they’re really collecting dust,” she said. The art piece now has more than 60 different flower types and weighs about 40 pounds.
What first got Trzonkowska into art was her interest in creating and doing things with her hands. Her other hobbies include cooking and remodeling. “I like making pretty things and it’s always a really fun challenge to create something,” she said. When asked if being good at art is a talent or a skill, Trzonkowska answered that it is a bit of both. She admitted that when she first tried out art, she was not good at it. It took her time and practice to get where she is today. Trzonkowska’s favorite thing about being an artist is feeling accomplished and being proud of what she’s done once it is finished.
Trzonkowska, formerly of West Babylon, has been doing art seriously since her junior or senior year of high school. At West Babylon High School, she took an AP Studio Art course. She said this pushed her to start taking her art seriously, calling the class “prestigious.” In 2018, when she was a senior in high school, Trzonkowska’s art was displayed at the Heckscher Museum in Huntington. Her piece was called “Too Close” and was done in colored pencil.
When Trzonkowska was a student at Stony Brook University, one of her art teachers mentioned that art students should consider making a website to get noticed. She decided the cheapest and fastest way was through social media.
Trzonkowska is first-born generation American as her parents are both Polish.
“I feel like a lot of immigrant parents are very strict in general with like schooling and stuff so she did push me and help me,” she said. It was difficult at first for Trzonkowska’s mother to accept her dropping out of school and pursuing an art career. “At first my mom was just like you’re gonna be struggling for the rest of your life, you’re not going to get anything out of this and she really was disappointed in me,” she said. Her dad on the other hand, she said, wasn’t as strict about her chosen career. Though her parents have relaxed a little about her choice she said her mom still asks from time to time if she’s going back to school.
Karaline Talty is a reporter with The SBU Media Group, part of Stony Brook University’s School of Communication and Journalism’s Working Newsroom program for students and local media.
