Pysanky takes practice at Greensburg art workshop

Spring Cassidy of North Huntingdon is pretty sure she’s just going to buy a standard egg dye kit from the store next year.

“This is not easy,” said Cassidy, as she worked to create a delicate design on her egg using a traditional Ukrainian kistka, a short wooden dowel rod fitted with metal wire and a small stylus.

It is used to painstakingly apply layer after layer of wax during the creation of pysanky, an eastern European tradition that creates beautifully intricate dyed eggs.

Of course, you have to blow out the egg’s insides first.

That was the first step in Saturday’s pysanky class, taught by Sharon Bratton, owner at 12th Octave in downtown Greensburg. About 10 people took part in the class.

“My father was Ukrainian,” Bratton said. “He didn’t do the eggs, but I learned from a friend of mine about 15 years ago. It’s time-consuming, but it’s also relaxing.”

Jennifer O’Lexa of Pittsburgh wasn’t so sure about the relaxing part. She cracked two eggs trying to poke holes to blow through. And that was before she and Devan Dudley of Greensburg accidentally set their kistkas on fire.

The kistka is used to apply melted wax. Bratton said the general procedure is to dye eggs moving from light to dark colors — in this case yellow, orange, red, green, blue and then black — which she had laid out for participants.

“Whatever you apply wax to first will remain white,” she said. “You can dye it yellow, apply more wax, and then everything you put the wax on is what will show up yellow.”

Bobbie Laciak of Greensburg found herself pausing often to consider her next step, as she worked on a design that featured a cross and flowers.

“It’s hard to get my mind around the ‘negative’ concept with the colors,” she said with a laugh.

Bratton said pysanky takes a lot of practice, and after that, a lot of planning.

“It can take a couple hours for the average egg, and the more intricate the design, the longer it takes,” she said.

Diane Romanelli of Irwin found herself in an innovative mood as she struggled to apply wax where she wanted.

“I wish there was a hot-glue gun you could use with wax,” she said.

The Pysanky for Peace website dates the practice back to prehistoric Trypillian culture, a people who lived from approximately 5500-2750 B.C. in the region that is now parts of Ukraine, Moldova and Romania.

According to the website, “eggs decorated with nature symbols were chosen for sun worship ceremonies and became an integral talisman of spring rituals.”

Christians embraced the egg symbol, incorporating it into the Bible’s telling of the tomb from which Christ rose. With the Trypillians’ acceptance of Christianity in 988, the decorated pysanka (“pysanky” is technically the plural version) continued to play an important role in Ukrainian rituals.

For Sue Kuster of Murrysville, the evolution of the Christian religion didn’t play into it much.

“I just keep dripping wax where I don’t want to,” she said with a laugh.