"You Make My Day" Painting

I was born in the ancient capital of Bulgaria -Veliko Tarnovo in the family of a father choreographer and director of a traditional folk group and a mother accountant. Probably I inherited my talent from my father who was also a very good photographer, surrounded by creative relatives. One of his family members was Marko Markov- () who was a sculptor and a professor at the National Art Academy and whose sculptures perpetuate historical figures in central public places in Sofia, the nowadays capital of Bulgaria. That is why I have always had natural inclination to art, music and dance. For me painting goes hand in hand with music. Despite my love for art, my life took another direction- I spent five wonderful, fulfilling and rewarding years as a student of English Philology in the beautiful town of Blagoevgrad at South-West University of Blagoevgrad ( ) and earned my Master’s Degree in 2000. Following the natural course of circumstances, I returned to my home town and started work at The British Council Library at Veliko Turnovo University. () At that time I had a gust of creativity-poems were springing out of me so quickly that I could hardly write them down. Then my art skills literally burst out and all of a sudden a flashing thought came to me: “I am an artist”. It was a deep and clear understanding that totally changed my life and I started traveling towards this new goal of mine. I set myself the task of painting daily artworks in order to improve my skills, bought a few books and you could see me every day arranging still life and loaded with lots of desire and inspiration, painting energetically for long hours. As our family moved to another town, I became an English teacher at an Art School. I had plenty of time in the afternoons to paint and soon my first solo exhibition appeared, followed by many more. This led to opening another position for me at school- I became an art teacher as well. 2020 came and it brought the new Covid 19 restrictions and changes. I intuitively felt that it was my time for a new season in life and I quit my job in order to become a self-employed artist after 15 years of teaching (and actively painting). During the last two years I think I produced a lot of quality artwork, as I received assistance, correction and professional guidance several times by some helpful resources of Evolve Artist. I am very grateful to them for that! I sign my artwork with my artistic name Salaveya (comes from songbird).