Tatyana was born in 1958 Vladimir, a city in Central Russia about 150 miles from Moscow. As a child, she attended and completed a special art-school for gifted artistic children. Then in 1976, she graduated from the Abramtsevo Folk-Art College, a prestigious specialty art college, with her major area of study being ceramic and porcelain painting.
She was employed for years as a museum "restorer", where she worked on repairing and restoring old paintings, primarily classical oils. Throughout her career, she attended various specialty art-classes, and although she was noted as a premier restorer of paintings, her first love became painting the Matryoshka dolls that were a popular folk-art form throughout the region where she grew up.
She began painting dolls for sale in 1988; and she created her own special style from her studies in painting ceramics. Her special love of cats, and her love for color are combined to create her most popular dolls painted with cats.