Pavlina Panova

Pavlina Panova was born in 1959 in Bulgaria where she had a successful career as a publishedauthor, literary critic and teacher in Bulgarian Language and Literature. Froman early age she had a great affection for her native language and knew thather life would be connected to the world of words, spoken and written.Overcoming many dramatic social changes and challenges, she always followed herdreams and ambitions for a higher education, and a creative and intellectuallyproductive life. After graduating from VT University, she organized publiclectures and open mike events, and established writers clubs for children andadults. Her biggest achievements were the founding of Educational Center andpublishing of three books. 

In 1999 she and her family came to America andsince then they have been living in Irving. She did not speak English and feltdeprived of her basic and best tool for communication – words. In order to copewith this handicap, she enrolled as an ESL student at North Lake College soonafter her arrival. Almost parallel to that she started creating simple pictureswith pressed leaves and became passionately involved in this new artistic wayof expression. In 2000 she became a member of Irving Arts Center which gave herthe first opportunity to participate in an art exhibit. 

 After a few years of experimenting withpressed leaves and other natural materials, she realized that she needed more knowledgeabout art to develop her style. In 2007 she went back to North Lake College asa full time credit student with the intention of studying Art and English on ahigher level. She gained not only practical skills, but also theoreticalknowledge which has influenced her work tremendously. Since then she has beentransforming and applying some drawing and painting techniques in her work withpressed leaves. For the last few years she has been actively working in a newdirection - combining clay and leaves. In 2011 she graduated from North LakeCollege with an Associate’s degree in Art.