The Illustrated Carol Project was conceived as a visual exploration of the vivid and sometimes fantastical imagery contained in Christmas carols and other holiday songs.

This first series of four paintings draws entirely on traditional Ukrainian holiday music, as represented by Christmas carols, or koliadky, and New Year's songs, or shchedrivky. The texts are a window onto the Slavic past: richly layered tapestries in which Christian concepts nestle comfortably among earlier pagan symbols and surviving traces of pre-Christian traditions.

Click on the menu for texts and additional information on each painting.

This project is produced in cooperation with The Ukrainian History and Education Center.

The Ukrainian History and Education Center connects generations by telling the stories of Ukraine and Ukrainian Americans through exhibitions, educational programming, workshops, and conferences — online and in person.

Holiday cards featuring the Illustrated Carol Project are available via the UkrHEC website. All proceeds benefit UHEC's educational programming.

Natalka Pavlovsky is a first-generation Ukrainian-American whose creative life has orbited the twin lights of art and music. She grew up with these carols — and with their imagery. The vivid, descriptive nature of the texts first prompted her to start painting them. The more she looked into their meanings and historical contexts, the more the project engaged her scholarly interests, and the more invested she became in sharing the images as well as the deeply rooted traditions these carols represent.

An educational Jersey Girl, Dr. Pavlovsky graduated from Rutgers University, then completed her graduate work at Princeton University, earning her Ph.D. in Musicology. She is Professor of Music at Rowan College South Jersey, where she has taught since 2005. In addition to her lifelong passion for painting, Natalka loves to spend time in the kitchen, or outdoors (preferably in a kayak, on a hiking trail, or in water). She and her husband have one adult son.

For more information, email IllustratedCarol@gmail.com