Pysanky: An ancient art form on a fragile canvas
It’s the perfect time for pysanky.
Sisters Coreen Weilminster and Kerry Palumbo came out to the Carbon County Environmental Education Center in February to teach a class on the incredibly detailed artistic eggs, just in time for the traditional pysanky season of Lent.
“Pysanky is a Ukrainian word that means ‘to write,’ and typically we write intentions through symbols and colors and designs on your egg,” Weilminster said.
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As it turns out, these decorative little treasures have a long history, and have transcended different cultures throughout the years.
“Pysanky is an ancient art form. It was around in pagan times, and it was adopted by Christianity,” Weilminster said.
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Lehighton resident Karen Shanton had been looking forward to the class for some time, as she had a strong interest in preserving the art.
“I’m very excited, because it’s something that’s not done as much as it used to be. It’s important to keep it going, otherwise no one knows how to do it anymore,” she said.
Pysanky is a family tradition for Weilminster and Palumbo, and with it comes a sort of responsibility to pass the art along.
“It’s your promise that you make when you learn to make them, that you’ll pass it along to other people. We learned from aunts and great-aunts. Our grandmother had 13 brothers and sisters, and they were all first-generation Americans, and they brought the craft over with them from Czechoslovakia,” Palumbo said
Weilminster, who works as an education coordinator at Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Maryland, first started teaching the art of pysanky as a coping mechanism for soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Palumbo, who teaches at Palmerton Area High School, has even woven a pysanky workshop into her curriculum.
“I teach an elective in comparative mythology, and we talk about some of the traditions and symbolism that go with the pysanky art,” she said.
In order to craft pysanky, an artist needs some specialized supplies.
“It involves very vibrant dyes. The tools that are used for pysanky are beeswax, a tool called a kistka, which is a funnel on the end of a stick that allows you to melt the beeswax over a candle flame. You apply the beeswax to the egg, and then you dye your egg different colors,” Weilminster said.
The design and dye process itself is actually rather simple, as long as you follow a few key rules.
“When you make pysanky, you start with a clean, white egg. You can also use brown eggs, brown are fine. You have to make sure you’ve washed your hands, and then you draw your design on your egg with a pencil, or you could just start fresh. Once you have your design down and you’ve thought about the order of the colors, you take your kistka tool, you heat your wax, and you start to draw on your egg,” Weilminster said.
Any mistakes have to be wiped off with vinegar, as erasers act like the wax, preventing the dye from taking hold.
Weilminster and Palumbo taught a simple pattern, with the crowd dividing their eggs into eighths, with a star pattern in the center, accented by wheat lines.
After gently heating their kistka over a candle flame, the artists would lightly scrape the reservoir of the kistka across a hunk of beeswax before heating it again. By guiding the kistka over the certain lines on the egg with a light touch, the tool leaves a slim line of wax.
Next comes the dye process.
“If you want something yellow on your egg, you dip it in a yellow dye. Anything you want yellow on your egg, you’ll color it with your kistka. Anything that’s on this egg that’s white was done when the egg was fresh. The white reindeer, and the white outline of all of my fish and the white ladders, those were all done when the egg was fresh. And then you kind of go in order of color. Traditionally, you would go yellow, then green, then blue. Then you would put your egg in an orange dye to get rid of any of those blues or greens, and then subsequently go into darker colors like red,” Weilminster said.
Once the initial lines are complete, the egg goes for a dip in the yellow dye for about 30 seconds to a minute. After gently blotting it off, the process continues, with the decorator tracing a new set of lines before proceeding to the next color. The order of the dyes is imperative — if you skip something, you can’t just go back without rinsing all the layers of dye off.
Of course, with eggs being as gentle as they are, mistakes are bound to happen, as Weilminster and Palumbo reminded the crowd.
“Don’t get attached to your egg!” they both warned the crowd throughout the course. Even after crafting hundreds of pysanky, an artist is bound to break a few.
Green spots were added to the design with cotton swabs, which were then covered with a bit of wax to preserve the color.
Once the final set of lines are complete, the egg takes a swim in the black dye.
At this point, a sizable dab of wax is distributed on the bottom of the egg, a hole is poked into the bottom, the contents are scrambled, and Weilminster uses a special tool to blow out the insides.
Once the egg is nice and hollow, it takes a quick trip in the microwave to melt off the wax. After gently wiping any excess away, the pysanky is complete, revealing layers of color and intricate designs that were hidden underneath.
Despite a few hiccups here and there — a cracked egg, a skipped dye — everyone was able to produce their own little piece of historic art. Summit Hill resident Gretchen Bienkowski was thrilled to learn the pysanky process, as she has always wanted to decorate her own eggs.
“My uncle has an entire collection of these, because he’s a priest. When he blesses baskets for Easter, the older ladies will give him an egg as a thank you for that process, and he always has them out, every Easter when we go to see him. We have always looked at them and said, ‘I wish I could do this.’ But, we had no idea how. Learning how it gets done ... it’s just, wow!” Bienkowski said.
Even those who have had plenty of pysanky experience learned something new at the class.
“I’ve learned with the traditional pysanky, but I also have a nature viewpoint, so I wanted to see what the different styles could be,” said Marie Stoves of Lansford.
While the gorgeous and detailed designs and colors of pysanky may seem daunting, both Palumbo and Weilminster said that all it takes is a little practice and patience to turn out an extravagant egg.
“Put a little thought into it at the start, and you’re going to end up with a beautiful egg,” Weilminster said.
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