Victoria (Vika) Bulgakova is the designer, owner, and maker behind the Swanky Crow jewelry brand and internationally exhibiting award-winning artist. At the age of 42 she left her successful corporate career in New York, moved to Michigan to attend the MFA program in Metalsmithing at Cranbrook Academy of Art, and established her studio practice in Detroit upon graduation. She had no prior metalsmithing experience and no formal art education when she started this journey.

Two major values that drive Vika’s work are beauty and sustainability. Sustainability as a multi-faceted concept pertaining to every aspect of our lives: our personal and professional relationships, our careers, our physical and mental health, our environment, to name a few. How do we make choices that will sustain, nourish, and fulfill us long term?

And she strongly believes that talent is overrated.

Vika holds an MFA degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art, an MA in Communications and a BA in English from NYU, and Classical Piano degree from Mariupol Music College in Ukraine, her homeland where she lived until immigrating to the US at the age of 20.

What You Will Learn:

• What life was life growing up in totalitarian, Ukraine
• Why being a political refugee wired Vika to take a stable “survival” job
• How Vika applied her English degree towards a corporate career in technology
• The difference between genius and talent 
• How being afraid can help prompt new ventures

How to contact Victoria Bulgakova:

• Website: www.swankycrow.com
• https://www.victoriabulgakova.work/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoriabulgakova/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swanky.crow.jewels/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vb.handmade.jewelry/