Triple Dose of Imagination

Art comes in the life of each person at a different time and in its own way. If it has not entered through the front door of childhood, it may come much later, as long as you have not locked your doors tightly. We present the personal stories of three masters who have developed remarkable skills in their work with metal, wood and clay.

The Accountant Jeweller

Teo Hvarchilkov is an extraordinary accountant. He has been working since he was 17 years old. Life offered him surprises and he embraced them. When he moved from Varna to Sofia, for two years, he worked as a graphic designer in a big printing house. Then, he lived in Brussels, and when he came back, he started working in the state administration. Fate took him to the Lifelong Learning Directorate at the Ministry of Education and Science, and this is when he broke the shackles of the “thinking inside the box”, and until now, he has never stopped learning. Two years ago, he was watching a TV report for a Wall Street financier who left behind his successful career and started making jewellery from white gold and diamonds. This story inspired him to experiment with jewellery making, and so, he enrolled in a master’s degree in Art Processing of Metal. Passion – this is impetus for art. He loves his work in the finance department of the Implementation Agency for Operational Programme “Science and Education for Intelligent Growth”, and this is how he sees his horizon ahead: “Accounting and making jewellery.

The Woodcarver and Luthier

Alexander Vasilev’s dream is to receive an order for the design of the string section of an entire orchestra. And this would be the logical step after Musical Plastics – his master’s thesis, with which he won a two-month creative specialisation at Cité Internationale des arts in Paris. In high school, he studied computer graphics, but decided to add something new to his skills and enrolled in the carving course at the National Academy of Arts. “Wood is a material with many plastic qualities and I managed to learn to work with it in a way that it does not look wooden. A masterpiece is such a work that can stand the test of time.

For several years, he has been interested in lutherie and for this reason he studied well the different materials and their properties. Just before graduating, he had the idea of making sculptures playing instruments. He used four types of wood – larch, maple, ash, and white pine. He hopes to sell the two musical plastics in order to fund the making of others.

The Film Director and Ceramist

Кrassimir Ivanoff is a bachelor and master in Ceramics. He, however, is a person who comes from the film circles. He graduated in film directing in Florence and is faithful to the seventh art. Among his many “roles”, we can point out being assistant to famous directors, such as Martin Scorsese and Mel Gibson. At the age of 44, he decided to enter the depths of another art, with which he has never been in contact before in order to run away from the routine. While he was studying for his second higher education degree, he never stopped working for the film industry and managed to find time for everything. He says that to learn a craft, you have to be humble, to bow down to it and to show the necessary respect to all who teach you. His thesis work – an art installation from ceramic tableware, called The Renaissance City, is just part of the show that goes on. He has already made sculptural awards for many competitions and festivals, but ceramics remains more like a hobby.