LIFESTYLE

Pysanky precision keeps Easter traditions alive

Michelle Shippers
These Ukrainian Easter eggs, called pysanky eggs, were made by Irene Grassmann of Irondequoit.

If you are planning on decorating eggs for Easter, you might want to buy them early.

Due to an alignment of the calendars, Eastern Orthodox Easter will fall on the same day as traditional Western Easter: Sunday, April 20. This once every four years occurrence means that Rochester's large Eastern European population, which includes more than 15,000 Ukrainian-Americans, will spend this week preparing pysanky: intricate, mosaic-like decorated eggs, for the Easter celebration. While the earliest forms of pysanky were made using whole, hard-boiled eggs, today's pysanky artists usually blow out the yolk so that the elaborate shell can be preserved for years to come.

"I don't think of myself as an artist," said Irene Grassmann, 68 of Irondequoit. "I just really love doing this, and it's important for me to keep my culture and the Ukrainian traditions alive through this art."

Though her mother was born in the Ukraine, Grassmann was born in Germany and her family immigrated to the United States when she was 5 years old. Captivated by the beauty of the pysanky eggs her mother prepared for the traditional Ukrainian Easter food basket, Grassmann started making pysanky as a teenager.

Today, Grassmann makes pysanky eggs year-round, taking custom orders, selling at art shows and giving them away as gifts. Grassmann adheres strictly to traditional pysanky art and color patterns, using a stylus (known as a kistka) dipped in melted beeswax to draw designs on the egg before placing it in a dye bath. The word pysanky comes from the Ukrainian word pysaty, meaning "to write," and so the designs are always drawn on the egg and never painted.

"The egg is a symbol of rebirth and new beginnings" said the Rev. Bohdan Hedz, assistant pastor at St. Josaphat's Ukrainian Catholic Church in Rochester. "They remind us of the day our Lord rose from the dead and brought us new life."

While there is no definitive origin story on the practice of coloring eggs for Easter, Hedz recalls a common legend told to Ukrainian children that implies colored eggs became proof of the Resurrection for Pontius Pilate, the judge who condemned Jesus to death.

While there are many versions of this legend, Hedz recounts that Pilate supposedly became a believer when his basket of white eggs miraculously turned bright red. Today, while Western Easter eggs are often dipped in pastel dye baths of pink, green and yellow, traditional pysanky eggs are bright red, black, orange or shades of deep blue, purple and green.

"Each region of the Ukraine has its own symbols that are drawn on the egg, and you can recognize the region by these patterns and symbols," says Hedz. Common secular symbols include horses or deer for health and wellness, chickens and roosters for fertility, birds for happiness, flowers for love and beauty or wheat for prosperity. Eggs are also decorated with Christian symbols, such as a cross to symbolize the Resurrection or a triangle to symbolize the Holy Trinity. Tying these designs together are complex line patterns that also carry symbolic meaning, such as circular lines for eternity or wavy lines to ward away evil.

"We do not draw Easter bunnies," says Grassmann, who adds that making one pysanka egg can take three hours or more. "Ukrainian Easter is more religious to us than anything, and Easter bunnies are not part of that celebration."

For centuries, pysanky eggs and similar egg decorating art forms have been made by people who live or whose families originated in Eastern Europe and Russia. Today, there is a new generation of pysanky artists, many of whom have no ties to these regions, such as Mia Sohn, 59 of Rochester. Sohn combines traditional pysanky methods with modern color schemes to make her own unique artwork.

"I try to only draw traditional symbols, but I sometimes combine them in nontraditional ways," says Sohn, who took up pysanky 30 years ago after taking a class. "Pysanky is a way for me to express myself; it's beautiful and it takes time to make."

Sohn has shipped her designs all over the world, including Holland and Australia. She also occasionally teaches classes in pysanka at public libraries. Like Grassmann, Sohn has won several awards for her designs and continues to create new pysanky eggs year-round.

"In my way of thinking, we have to continue to promote this art form for generations to come," says Grassmann, who has taught pysanky egg decorating to her two children and granddaughter. "It's about keeping the tradition alive."

Shippers is a freelance writer who lives in Rochester.