PYSANKY BASICS by MAGGIE
GENEROSITY Enhances Learning – encourages instructors and students
to freely share their knowledge and experience…
Pysanky is kept vital by constantly expanding its definition, while preserving its traditions.
Ancient legends tell us that the world began from the egg, a kind of magic egg (the Ukrainian call it Yaytse-Raytse -Heavenly Egg), from which all the human beings and beasts, flowers and herbs had come. Too mystical is life-giving solar power of the yolk, of perfect roundness of eggs, too strong is magic hidden in ornaments of pysanky and shkriabanky. To create this magic with your own hands is a big miracle and great responsibility.
MAGGIE is of Lemko Ukrainian and Polish ancestry.
As a girl of 12, I learned to make pysanky-Ukrainian Easter Eggs-from a gentleman at our local Ukrainian Center. I watched him take a raw egg and with a simple wooden Kistka or stylus, and melted bees wax, write a perfect equator line, using the sharp skill of a master "pysankarka". He also taught me how to attach a straight pin to the end of a #2 pencil eraser, to use as a stylus for applying wax patterns in the Lemko style; my love of writing pysanky began that day. I make pysanky all year round and have taught others this ancient art in New Jersey at Peters Valley Craft Center, Markeim Art Center, Appel Farm Arts & Music Center, and Triple Oaks; in addition, Fletcher Farm School in Vermont, and Pysanky USA Retreats, in Pennsylvania. I have done demonstrations for the Peters Valley Craft Center and the Burlington County Historical Society and local public schools.
I am a member of The Carpatho-Rusyn Society and the International Egg Art Guild, from where I hope to achieve a Masters Level in writing Pysanky.
2014-2015. N.B. EGG ARTISTS USE HATCHERY OR FARM GROWN EGGS; NO EGGS ARE TAKEN FROM THE WILD. U.S. FEDERAL LAW PROHIBITS THE USE OF EGGS FROM THE WILD.
As a girl of 12, I learned to make pysanky-Ukrainian Easter Eggs-from a gentleman at our local Ukrainian Center. I watched him take a raw egg and with a simple wooden Kistka or stylus, and melted bees wax, write a perfect equator line, using the sharp skill of a master "pysankarka". He also taught me how to attach a straight pin to the end of a #2 pencil eraser, to use as a stylus for applying wax patterns in the Lemko style; my love of writing pysanky began that day. I make pysanky all year round and have taught others this ancient art in New Jersey at Peters Valley Craft Center, Markeim Art Center, Appel Farm Arts & Music Center, and Triple Oaks; in addition, Fletcher Farm School in Vermont, and Pysanky USA Retreats, in Pennsylvania. I have done demonstrations for the Peters Valley Craft Center and the Burlington County Historical Society and local public schools.
I am a member of The Carpatho-Rusyn Society and the International Egg Art Guild, from where I hope to achieve a Masters Level in writing Pysanky.
2014-2015. N.B. EGG ARTISTS USE HATCHERY OR FARM GROWN EGGS; NO EGGS ARE TAKEN FROM THE WILD. U.S. FEDERAL LAW PROHIBITS THE USE OF EGGS FROM THE WILD.
Did Ancient Peoples Bless Their Houses With Eggs?
by Stefan Sirucek Click on image for a link to the story at National Geographic 
A Carpathian woman is using a stylus that appears to be a straight needle to apply bees wax to an egg. Pysankas of the Ukrainian Carpathians by Solomchenko, 2002.
EARLIEST WRITING TOOLS Peasants often made a crude wooden tool with a pig-bristle fixed to the end. In earliest times, it would have been a thorn. Today pysanky writers use a copper, metal or electric" kistka". What is a kistka? A kistka or kystka is the name given to the stylus (tool) used in making pysanky in some areas of western Ukraine and in Poland. It is also referred to as a pysachok and pysaltse. It generally consists of a small metal reservoir with a fine tip/opening on a wooden or plastic handle. Wax is scooped into the reservoir, heated, and then this stylus is used to write with wax on an egg's shell.
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Cultic ceramic eggs have been discovered in excavations near the village of Luka Vrublivets'ka, during excavations of a Trypillian site (5th to 3rd millennium BC). These eggs were ornamented, and in the form of торохкальці (torokhkal'tsi; rattles containing a small stone with which to scare evil spirits away).
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 This is the oldest Easter egg found by Lviv archaeologists to date.
500-year-old Easter egg was found during excavations in Lviv, the press service of the Rescue Archaeological Service of the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine has reported.According to the report, the pysanka (a Ukrainian ornate Easter egg) was found in a water collector dated to the 15th-16th centuries, on Shevska Street in the central part of the city at a depth of 5.5 meters.
"Previously, Kyivan Rus pysankas dated to the 12th-13th centuries were found in Zhydachiv, Lviv region, and Khrinnyky in Volyn region, but these were ceramic eggs. This one is made on an egg shell, most likely from a goose egg. And it is very well preserved, almost 90%," a junior research officer of the Rescue Archaeological Service, Ostap Lazurko, said. |
