Tag: Easter Eggs

Easter is now on display here at the shop. It’s an egg collector’s dream. Eggs are really fun to collect, I assure you. My own collection brings me great pleasure and I hope to write a book about decorated eggs some day.

Susan’s Easter Shop offers decorated eggshells from Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Canada and New Mexico. Ukrainian Easter eggs are called pysanky. Shirley Buchy is a talented maker of pysanka in Canada. Her work is the finest I have seen, but she is now retired because her eyesight is no longer good enough. I have three eggs by Shirley Buchy – featured in the picture at the top. The goose egg is $195 and each chicken egg is $75. I will never have this quality again, so here is a unique opportunity for collectors. Please call if you want one: (505) 983 2127.

There will be a
Free Demonstration
of how to make pysanky on
Saturday, March 10th
from 1:00 to 4:00 pm
in the Exchange Room at La Fonda.

The technique is over two thousand years old. It involves pure beeswax, a writing tool called a kistka, jars of brilliant dyes, uncooked eggs, time, skill, and patience. It’s fascinating to watch. Susan Summers will be there. She sometimes uses southwest designs on her eggs. Melissa Lewis will demonstrate the less challenging “drop pull” technique.

Supplies to make pysanky can be found here!

Gorgeous, colorful Ukrainian Easter Eggs are called Pysanky in Ukrainian. Susan Summers first witnessed pysanky being made at the annual free demonstrations sponsored by Susan’s Easter Shop during Lent. The technique of making pysanky is ancient, going back two thousand years in the Ukraine. It involves fresh, whole eggs, a cake of pure beeswax, a lit candle or heat source to melt the beeswax, handled tools called kistky, and jars of brilliant dyes.

The first time Susan touched a kistka, she knew she was destined to make pysanky. After twenty-five years of practice, Susan is at an expert level very few reach. She makes traditional Ukrainian designs, and she also used southwest designs, such as this Navajo Yei design on a goose egg, strung to hang with selected beads. She puts eight to ten hours of expert work on each egg.

Come and see Susan Summers and a few other artist actively working on fine pysanky at this year’s free demonstration. It will be Saturday, February 27 from 1:00 to 4:00 PM at the Hotel St. Frances on Don Gaspar in downtown Santa Fe. That historic hotel is at the corner of Galisteo and Water, a block south of San Fancisco Street.

Melissa Lewis will show a special traditional batik egg decorating technique we call the “drop pull” method. She learned it as a child from her father, with a kistka and melted beeswax in the lid from a jar of peanut butter. Elizabeth Mesh will show very contemporary styles of pysanky. If we are lucky, we’ll have John Baldwin demonstrate too. He has created an Audrey Hepburn egg, which is amazing to see.

I hope to see you on Saturday, February 27 at the Hotel Saint Francis in Santa Fe. Free is good. Pysanky are great!