PYSANKY! CHRISTINE LITWAK TEACHES US THE INS AND OUTS OF UKRAINIAN EASTER EGGS

Our March cover artist stands apart from those who have graced our pages in the past, in that she doesn’t consider herself an artist. During our interview, she never once referred to her work as ‘art,’ or to herself as an ‘artist.’ In fact, she did her best not to talk about herself at all, careful to keep the focus on the creations themselves.

Since Christine Litwak moved here in the ‘70s and joined the Sacred Heart Ukrainian Catholic Church in Johnson City, she has been making Ukrainian pysanky (pih-sahn-kih), the kaleidoscopically ornate eggs that were made to ward off unclean spirits and to promote fertility in pre-Christian Ukraine.

Pre-Christian Slavs were pagans, and much of their energy went into trying to control the unpredictable universe upon which their lives and livelihood depended. The egg, a symbol of fertility, was perceived as the source of life, the sun, and the universe. Fertility of crops, animals, and young women were all closely related and were often addressed with the same rituals: pysanky helped to promote the general fertility of the village. But they had to be disposed of carefully, for if they were to get into the hands of a witch, she could use the eggs to gather dew and dry up a cow’s milk, or poke people with the shells to make them sick.

With the introduction of Christianity to the Slavs in 988 A.D., the meaning behind the ritual slowly evolved to reflect Christian beliefs. While Easter eggs are a popular tradition throughout churches and Christian communities, Ukrainians have held on particularly tightly to the history of their tradition. People engrossed in the craft tend to approach it with such diligence that it seems there lingers in them the ancient belief that only if the egg is completed will they be able to hold evil forces at bay.

Litwak is inclined to explain the experience in simpler terms. In the corner of her living room, a tall glass display cabinet brimming with pysanky is the blushing focal point of her home, casting a modest gleam of color about the space. These are complimented by embroidered pillows and wallpaper which share the geometric patterns that line the eggs. With her life’s work primly resting around her living space, Christine discusses it like a sort of domestic hobby, like knitting scarves or baking bread.

“When you have young kids, you know, you have to find your own outlet once they go to bed, or something to do, and it taught me a great deal of patience.” Her kids are all grown up now. She has four girls. The oldest three are married, and the youngest one still lives with her. She also has seven grandchildren, and they are each photographed in angelic poses in frames that line the top of the piano.

Christine is Polish, but her husband Matt is Ukrainian, and over the years she has become an expert on their history, which she read to me from a sheet she prepared almost directly upon my arrival.

Although today, the human race is better equipped to explain the fluctuations of the weather and the various potential causes of death, the unpredictable still scoots its way into our lives, and to have a small area of total control can be cathartic.

When her mother was turning 80, Christine planned a surprise party for her, inviting friends and relatives from all over to celebrate. Christine made a special egg for her mother, with her name, Grace, written on it. Then the day before the party, while Christine was working on an expansive photo album with characteristic vigor, her mother fell asleep on her cousin’s shoulder and passed away. Christine reports this with a tone of lasting disbelief, but in response to sympathy she declares, “that’s just how it goes.”

She has recently faced another fast transition, after her husband’s stroke left him dependent on her for assistance. Her attitude is to roll with the punches, and she admits that when life gets in the way, making pysanky is sometimes the first thing to go.

But she always comes back to it, and although part of what she enjoys most is its meditative quality, she does not fear venturing from the basic patterns and eggs. She’s decorated the eggs of, in size order: parakeet, quail, chicken, turkey, goose and ostrich. Chicken eggs are most commonly decorated, and their relatively small size makes them possible to complete within a few days. Ostrich eggs, on the other hand, can take a month or more.

The act of decorating a bird’s egg is as delicate a procedure as you might imagine. Aside from patience, Christine says, humility is the art’s great lesson. “There have been times when I was thinking, “oh boy, that’s a good egg, and then it fell on the floor. Right, Ang?” she calls to her daughter in the kitchen. “How many times we dropped them? Because we were so admiring our work.”

Thought it’s not immediately apparent, the process of making the eggs is all about layers. You take a small stylus called a kistka, which you heat and use to melt the beeswax, and you write with it. The word pysanka comes from the Ukrainian word pysaty, to write, so pysanky makers refer to the act as “writing” the eggs. For horizontal lines, there is a wooden contraption which holds the egg and spins it, so that you may rely on the smoothness of the machine’s roll rather than the steadiness of your own hand. For vertical and diagonal lines, it’s all freehand.

The order of colors is always the same: white being the first and symbolizing purity, innocence and birth. Whatever is covered with wax will be shielded from the dye, so the first lines remain white. Dyes were traditionally made from plants: onion skins made yellow, beetroot made red. Some still choose these over artificial dyes for the sake of authenticity. The egg is dipped in vinegar and then into the yellow dye. After it dries, you write with the wax those lines which are to remain yellow, which symbolizes the sun, joy, and youth. Every color and shape has its own meaning in pysanky, so this affects the choices of the maker. Black is the last color added, and represents eternity, or the other world. After the whole egg has been decorated and all the dyes used comes the satisfying but still slow unveiling. You hold the egg over a tall flame, melting the wax and then wiping it clean, being careful not to press too hard or to drop it.

“A lot of people who do a lot of eggs will put them on the drying board and stick it in the oven and then wipe them off, but I like to do each one. I like to see them each one at a time,” says Christine, who only uses tall, white candles which she buys at church.

To make them shiny, you use a coat of clear varnish – Christine uses polyurethane stain. Next comes the wait; it could take from two days to a week for the egg to dry, depending on the type of egg. Keep in mind, all this time, the egg’s inners have been swooshing around inside. The final step is to use a needle to poke a hole at the egg’s end, squirting air through the hole to create circulation and get all of the yolk out. Christine shows me some eggs that she made in her earlier days ,when she was unaware of this last step; the yolk has formed a stiff ball which rattles on the inside, and the bottom of the egg has rotted.

Christine carefully goes through her display cabinet, picking the eggs up one by one, whispering at them to cooperate and not go tumbling on contact, taking the rest down with them. “I talk to them like they’re my babies. I talk to my plants too. People must think I’m crazy.” She shows me the first one she did, laughing at her inexperience. As the years go on, they get more and more detailed, evidencing experiments with different patterns and with icons, mostly Mary Magdalene.

Christine shows me an intricate egg made by her daughter, and then the carefree ones made by her young grandchildren. She has the one that she never got to give to her mother. Altogether, they make a shining, sentimental collection… one Christine can’t help but look on with a sigh of nostalgia and a trace of quiet pride.