The life and paintings of artist Donna Petcoff Watson.

She sees the world through a special lens that finds humor, gentleness and love in the most common everyday events. In her seventh decade, Donna sees all that’s right with the world. You would never know the real story of her life. She would never tell you. It was just stuff that happened along the way to a full life that borrows a line from a Jimmy Buffet song, “some of it magic, some of it tragic, but I had a good life all the way” 

Her story begins in a small Bulgarian village called Martin. Located on the Danube River a few miles and a lifetime away from the larger town of Ruse, Martin was and is now, a peasant village where people grow their own food, make their own wine and struggle to survive. Economic downturns don’t mean much in Martin because the population has never seen prosperity. 

Donna was born in October, 1938 to Atanas and Stanka Petcoff. Atanas was the oldest son in a family of three girls and one boy and her mom a hardworking daughter of a farming family. This is where the story takes off like the plot of a Russian novel. 

Atanas was asked by his family to accompany a younger sister and her new husband to America to help them get settled. Once the mission was accomplished, he would find a job and a place to live and then send for his pregnant wife, Stanka. He escorted the newlyweds to Toledo, Ohio in the fall of 1938. By the time he was ready for his wife to join him, war had broken out in Europe and he was denied passage. Neither could his wife and now infant daughter travel out of Bulgaria to join him. 

The separation lasted for nine long years. Donna and her mother lived in a one room home with her grandparents on the family farm. She remembers being hidden away from Nazi soldiers as they traveled through the village taking food and other possessions from the people they terrorized. Her mother sang to her to calm her during the frightening days and nights of Nazi occupation. She remembers her mother’s voice “as being so beautiful, it made me cry”. Despite the hardships and separation from her father, Donna’s mother remained optimistic about the future and assured her daughter that they would one day be reunited as a family. Her mother would say” Tomorrow will be a better day”.

“My mother had a wonderful sense of humor and she used it to relieve the stress and make me feel safe” recalled Donna.” In the worst of times, she could make me laugh. She was a remarkably strong woman. As I think about it, my mother was also my best friend. I could tell her anything”. 

Finally, in the winter of 1947 arrangements were complete for Donna and her mother to travel to the United States to join the father she had never known. Shipboard passage was in the hold of an overcrowded ocean liner. At age nine, Donna stepped onto Ellis Island as Danka Petcoff. An immigration agent Americanized her name to Donna and she prepared to meet her father for the first time in her life. 

“At first, I was afraid of him” she remembers. “He was a stranger, and my mother had taught me to be wary of strangers during the war”. The family of three traveled to Toledo, where Atanas had a factory job and an apartment. Finally, they were a family. As her mother told her, “tomorrow would be a better day”. 

Donna acclimated to American life and language quickly. She enrolled in the local elementary school and learned English rapidly. Soon she spoke perfect English without the hint of a European accent. She was an honor student and loved the process of learning. 

Nine months after entering America, Donna had a baby brother. She was a doting big sister and enjoyed being part of the typical American family of four. Her father was proud of his children and made sure that all the basic needs were met. 

“I still own some cashmere sweaters that he bought for me when I was a young girl. They were such special gifts and probably more than the family could afford. I cherish the gifts, but I cherish the thought behind them even more.” 

In the eighth grade, Donna met a handsome local boy named Carson Watson. He lived just down the street and was kind and friendly to her. Soon, Carson was hanging around the house and became a favorite of Donna’s father. “My Dad had a car, but no drivers license so Carson would drive him all around town. Dad really loved Carson like a son.”  

Five years after meeting her father, tragedy struck. Atanas was killed in an automobile accident. Donna was only 15. Her mother was now the head of the household and bravely trying to raise two children. She had no job experience outside the home and rather poor command of the English language. But she tried. She worked in a tomato processing plant to try to earn enough money to support the family. It wasn’t working. She was miserable, but still she sang to her daughter “in a voice so beautiful it still made me cry” and promised “tomorrow will be a better day” 

The Bulgarian-American community in Toledo took interest in the family and arranged a meeting for Stanka. They found an older Bulgarian gentleman who owned a business and would make a fine husband for the widow Petcoff. Alone and afraid, Stanka agreed to the marriage. 

Donna, now 17, also had wedding bells in mind. She and Carson had been dating since she was 13 and they were in love. Carson had graduated from high school and had enlisted in the Marine Corps. He would be assigned to San Diego and Donna wanted desperately to join him. But she was underage and needed her mother’s permission to obtain a marriage license. Stanka agreed, and on Christmas Eve, 1955 Donna Petcoff became Mrs. Carson Watson before a Justice of the Peace, her mother and in- laws. 

Donna moved to California and her mother, stepfather and brother moved to Florida. A few months later, her mother received a long distance telephone call from California. Donna was pregnant. The baby was due in March. 

When Carson was discharged from the Marine Corps, the young family moved back to Toledo. Carson found work and Donna dreamed of returning to school. She found a job to supplement the family budget and she and Carson made sure that one of them was always at home with their daughter. Life was good. 

Christmas morning, 1958 Donna received a long distance phone call from her stepfather. Her mother had died in bed from a brain aneurysm. The funeral would take place in Toledo so that her mom could be buried next to her father. Donna was devastated. 

Months passed, and then years and the pain healed. Her mother’s optimism passed on to her. Tomorrow would be better, the future would be kinder.

Soon Donna learned that another baby on the way. A second beautiful daughter Once again, life was good. 

Her family had settled into a comfortable routine. She took up painting as a hobby. Something to fill the hours while the children were in school. Friends encouraged her to enter art shows. She did and it was fun. It also fueled her desire to return to school, to study art more formally. 

Donna enrolled at the University of Toledo and studied art seriously. She studied the masters, past and present and she polished her own style. She experimented with watercolors, mixed media and oil. She learned pottery. She found her identity. She knew she was born to be an artist. She knew that all of life’s experiences had become part of her and part of her art. They are forever intertwined. 

Life went on. Tragedy struck again while she suffered through the death of her oldest daughter. Parents are not supposed to outlive their children. It was a tortuous time. Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough. Again the pain subsided, as her mother always promised it would. 

Then, without warning, another of those little life challenges. She was diagnosed with breast cancer. She faced the issue with courage and dignity, even humor. She sang and new that tomorrow would make things better. Optimism, uncompromising optimism. 

Donna turned again to the canvas to create, to be joyful, to be optimistic. She returned to the village in Bulgaria where she was born and remembered tearfully the first nine years of her life. The years  that shaped her and strengthened her. The years that taught her to sing when you’re scared and to sing when you’re happy and to face life’s challenges head on. Her work, like her spirit is uncompromisingly optimistic, courageous and happy. Given her biography, you wouldn’t expect it. The diminutive body hosts a giant talent and a genuinely good and decent person. 

Donna’s style is part impressionist, part expressionist and all original.  Her paintings reveal the hopeful, uncompromising optimistic spirit taught to her by her mother when she was frightened by marching soldiers. They are a celebration of life and all things good in the world. They touch your heart and soul and make you know that the future is bright and that everything will be ok. Because her mother told her so.