From Engineering Blueprints to Gourds

Multi-talented Marina Zalmanova has her palette in a lot of different creative outlets — designing weekly Shabbos greetings, serving as her father’s muse; Yakov Ayzengart was featured in the Atlanta Jewish Times, May 13, 2026, with his elaborate toothpick art — as well as her own out-of-the-box ceramic, mosaic, natural and found art compositions.

Zalmanova remembers the day she arrived in the U.S. on her 28th birthday in 1991. She had left Kishinev, Moldova, then part of the crumbling Soviet Union, carrying a degree in civil engineering and a lifelong love of crafting things with her hands. Three decades later, that love has grown into a sprawling, self-taught art practice built almost entirely from materials other people throw away.

Her creative instincts trace back to childhood, nurtured by talented parents and teachers. “I had good examples and followed their footsteps,” she said about her parents, both engineers who spent their free time building furniture and sewing clothing. She eschewed formal art instruction. Her strengths ran toward math and science, applying geometry to nearly every piece.

Zalmanova’s list of materials reads like an inventory from a recycling center: cardboard, plastic, glass bottles and shards, fabric scraps, metal pieces, aluminum foil, bottle corks, Styrofoam, seeds, and tree branches. Out of these, she builds banners and centerpieces for weddings, b’not mitzvahs, anniversaries, birthdays, births, and graduation milestones.

Her process is methodical, a holdover from her engineering training. For large-scale pieces, she first drafts a paper template at full one-to-one scale before transferring the design to the medium. Styrofoam is carved with a wood-burning tool, then finished with acrylic paint. Names, dates, favorite colors, and personal themes get woven into each piece. Her range extends into scrapbooking, polymer clay projects, and mosaics built from glass, plastic, and ceramic fragments.

And there’s a fascination with gourds. She explained, “It’s amazing how many things can be created out of them. I apply the paint, carve with a wood-burning technique, or combination of all for the finest result.”

Some come from a farm in North Georgia; others are grown and gifted by friends. For more than 15 years, Zalmanova has painted pumpkins for the school where she is employed in visual arts support for the classroom, tying each design to that year’s reading theme.

“I am trying to incorporate the annual theme to encourage children to read,” she explained. Her contributions there extend well beyond pumpkins — poster boards, book covers, banners, and hallway displays meant to make learning more engaging for students. For these, she often pulls images from online sources, reshaping, reformatting, and combining them into something new. “I am using the same approach for my 3D cards,” she added.

Her cardmaking venture began 20 years ago, when Zalmanova started designing three-dimensional greeting cards for all occasions. Customizable and personalized to each client’s request, the cards have become unexpectedly popular and remain in demand today.

One project stands out for the time it demanded. Inspired by reading Patricia Polacco’s, “The Keeping Quilt,” with her son, Zalmanova set out to make her own family quilt, stitching in names and photographs of immediate relatives. The piece took more than a year to finish. Later, when Polacco visited Atlanta, the two met and were photographed together with the quilt, a full-circle moment for a project from a bedtime story.

Outside of the studio, Zalmanova seeks inspiration in the outdoors. “The beauty of nature gives me strength and inspiration,” she said. “When I am working indoors, I like to listen to podcasts, lectures, and classes offered by various rabbis.”

She’s a regular visitor to art museums, galleries, and festivals, gravitating toward direct conversations with artists, then supplementing that with technique tutorials found online. She counts herself fortunate to have toured major art museums across Russia, Europe, and domestically.

Looking back on a path that began in a Soviet engineering classroom and now spanning quilts, gourds, mosaics, and pumpkins, Zalmanova holds her talents high. “Art is a big part of my life, and I am blessed to have it. I hope to be able to continue with my art and find creative niches where no one else is looking.”