About Me
I am Tsvetelina Taaffe (neé Krumova) and my art name is Elmenel. I am an artist-calligrapher and graphic designer. My last employment
was as a European Calligraphy and Drawing teacher at Art School Ginza, Tokyo.
Following that I devoted myself full-time on my own art project this site is dedicated to. I have also worked as an illustrator
(BARD Publishers, Sofia) and
graphic designer. I am the translator
of the Appendices of "The Lord of
the Rings" for the Bulgarian edition of the book. As a
researcher of J.R.R. Tolkien's works in 1998 I organised the first Tolkien
discussion club in Bulgaria.
In 2002 I graduated from Japanese Studies at Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" in Sofia, Bulgaria. I lived, studied and worked in Japan in the period 2004 - 2011. There I specialised in Graphic Design and DTP (I graduated from Media and Communications, Fukuyama University), as well as in Chadõ (Midorikai, Urasenke School of Tea Ceremony, Kyoto) that also included traditional Japanese culture, arts and aesthetics. I have been studying and practising calligraphy since I was fifteen. I have been drawing all my conscious life. English was the fist foreign language I learned, starting lessons at the age of three. Later I added to it Russian, French and Japanese. My native language is Bulgarian.
The Parma Eldaliéva project has been my personal and professional top
priority ever since its beginning in 2009. The initial idea of it has been on my mind long before that,
but the education I pursued in Japan empowered me to take control of all aspects of it, including my own print making,
art book development, design and pre-press, based on my original art in a manner I consider the most appropriate for it. This
opened the way for me to devise and accomplish unique art books and prints that could reach the broad audience I wanted to share them with.
It made me confident that I can devote myself fully to my art and embark on a decades-long project
with the ability to plan and fulfil every aspect of it, not limiting myself to the art materials and studio equipment, but expanding
into editorial design, production work, project management, etc.
The tragic Fukushima earthquake in March 2011 forced me to, very unexpectedly,
relocate back to Bulgaria. After dealing with various personal
ramifications in its wake, after about half a year I focused almost solely on my Parma Eldaliéva project.
Now I continue my work on it in Ireland where I moved in 2018.
It is a matter of great joy and profound satisfaction for me to be able to declare
the completion in 2016 of the first "Parma Eldaliéva" and
the first printed copies of it, followed by more copies in 2017 and a second edition in 2020,
the completion of three
major art manuscripts related to "Parma Eldaliéva" vol. II & III and
their printing in 2019 in a full-colour volume, "Parma Eldaliéva
Special I",
the completion in 2017 of the first long scroll in a series
of such, followed by two more in 2019,
the completion in 2018 of the last two of the seven
major calligraphed Parma Eldaliéva maps in both original and printed
versions,
the completion of three more
major art manuscripts related to "Parma Eldaliéva" vol. II & III and
their printing in 2021 in one full-colour volume, "Parma Eldaliéva
Special II",
the completion of one more
major art manuscript related to "Parma Eldaliéva" vol. II and
its printing in 2024 in one full-colour volume, "Parma Eldaliéva
Special III",
and the successful ongoing continuation of my work
on the remaining six "Parma Eldaliéva" major art books, as well as other
project related art.
Many thanks to my wonderful supporters!
www.patreon.com/Elmenel
www.elmenel.art
www.facebook.com/ParmaEldalieva
