FARMINGTON – Every winter for the past 13 years, Judy Loeven has spent her free time working with eggs.
Sitting bent at a desk in her study, from which emanates the subtle, sweet odor of beeswax, the former wolf behaviorist, now a proofreader, spends hour upon hour painstakingly writing ancient designs on smooth, white eggs and then dyeing them in brilliant colors, carrying on a tradition that has been handed down for millennia.
The finished products are called pysanky, from the Ukrainian root word psaty, “to write” (in Slavic languages, the suffix “y” denotes a plural, and therefore a single decorated egg is called a pysanka).
Pysanky have been “written” for thousands of years in Ukraine and throughout the Slavic lands, first by pagan Slavs who created them as tools of worship and as good luck talismans. The designs on the eggs, as well as the dye colors, were traditionally ascribed specific meanings.
When Christianity swept through Eastern Europe in the 10th century, the pysanky writing tradition was maintained in Ukraine, although the symbols on the eggs were given new meanings, and rather than being decorated year-round, pysanky were made during Lent and given as gifts at Easter.
Loeven, who is not of Ukrainian origin, learned to make pysanky from one of her classmates as a graduate student in Nova Scotia. At first, Loeven said, she shied away from learning the technique.
“I thought I couldn’t draw my way out of a paper bag,” she said. Her friend “dragged me kicking and screaming” into an egg-decorating party, “and I got the bug.”
She said her first eggs “were awful. They were just awful. I didn’t have good control of the wax, so they were blotchy and shaky.”
To make pysanky, “writers” use a wax-resistant technique that is much like batik, Loeven explained. She demonstrated the process Monday.
At her desk, she set canning jars filled with gold, red and black dyes, some newspaper, two eggs, a lump of beeswax, a candle, a pencil, and tiny tool called a “kistka,” used to “write” wax onto the egg. She drew a design onto the egg with a pencil first. “This is a very ancient one,” she said. “It’s called the bear paws. The design is 3,000 years old,” she added, noting it symbolizes “strength and protection.”
Next, Loeven scooped wax into her kistka and held it over a candle until the wax inside began to melt. Then, she traced areas on her bear paw design that would end up white in the finished pysanka. She bathed the egg in gold dye, and then repeated the wax-writing process on areas she decided would remain gold. The process continues until the design is finished, Loeven said, then the eggs are air-blown and varnished.
Loeven currently sells her pysanky for between $20 and $75, both to friends and at craft fairs around Maine. She said she will not pursue the craft as a career, though. She said her pysanky come out better when she is “in the mood” to create them.
“Personally, I think pysanky is very spiritual,” she said. “Because all these symbols mean something you’re putting your heart into it.”
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