Several years ago, one of my sisters became interested in the Ukrainian art of pysanky and (as sisters tend to do) sucked me into the world of Egg Art right along with her.

She has since moved on to other things, but I became fascinated with this process of batik on eggs and – having a predisposed attraction to organized geometric art forms – continued on into the world of the egg: One of the most organic of shapes, and an ancient symbol of life and rebirth. Talk about a square peg in a round hole!

Becoming increasingly obsessed with the challenge of wrapping a flat graphic around an ovoid surface (and having it come out balanced) I experimented with different patterns and motifs I came across in magazines, pottery, and various ethnic art forms. As long as the design could be plotted out on a grid, I could put it on an egg!

Way cool!

In my wanderings, I came across a book called Decorating Eggs: Exquisite Designs with Wax & Dye by egg artist Jane Pollak. Now SHE had done something interesting with goose eggs. She makes them into jewelry! I had seen eggshell jewelry before, but mostly they were pieces cut out from finished pysanky and then placed into a setting. Jane was decorating the pieces individually, specifically for the piece of jewelry. Hey, I like that!

Well it took a lot of hit and miss, searching for a suitable finish, finding a source for eggs, and trying to take the art of eggshell jewelry in my own direction. I finally settled on Ostrich Eggshells for my jewelry. They take the dye beautifully and they have a gently pebbled surface that makes for an interesting background texture. And they are nice and sturdy, being roughly 4 times as thick as a goose eggshell.

The back-filling was a real challenge. I never did find the grey industrial epoxy that Ms Pollak uses, but I did settle on a suitable alternative – clear tabletop epoxy. It has a super hard finish requiring a 48 hour cure, and it’s clear so I can sign the back of the eggshell and my signature shows through. I like that.

My designs? Well they are ever-changing. I specialize in the traditional Ukrainian, Polish and Russian designs typical to pysanky because I really love the colors and the symbolism. But I am constantly inspired by many many things. Textiles. Pottery. Ceramic Tiles. Ethnic Art. The Arts & Crafts style. Art Nouveau. And, of course, Mother Nature.

Re-posted from October 26, 2007

Well, I didn’t want to go a whole year without posting again . . .

Status? Still in the 5th wheel, but very close to finishing the house.

This is taking way longer than I expected but I will be so happy to finally move in, that I will most likely be delirious for months afterwords.

We get thunder and lightning storms every afternoon for the past few weeks. The rain is nice but makes everything humid.  Monsoon season starts around the 4th of July here, and goes through August.
I’ve acquired some tomato plants from Ruby the Postmaster. She started too many and gave the extras away. I came home with 8 little plants. John planted 2 of them upside down in 5 gallon buckets, and I did the rest the old fashioned way. In a plastic bin. So far I am winning – heh.

(Original text by Nanette Thorell 7/18/2009 (re-posted with minor edits)

Well, we are surviving in the trailer without any major difficulties (save a few leaky window corners).   On the ‘glass half full’ side – it’s very easy to keep tidy.  As long as I keep up with it, it’s not a big hassle.  No storage of course, but we keep bulk items in the shed on the other side of the driveway and can restock easily.  On the flip (glass half empty) side, it is prettymuch impossible to cook a decent meal onaccounta there is no counter space.  So one-dish casseroles have become my friend.  We have an outdoor BBQ too, but used it sparingly during fire season.

What?  You say – This is the 21st century girl – what about a microwave?

Well I fried the microwave.  We borrowed another one.  I fried that too.

So now we are using a toaster oven for small stuff.  Of course we still have the trailer oven and stovetop, but am trying to keep the clean-up at a minimum so I don’t use the oven much.  This may change.  We’ll see.

The cats are adapting, as cats do.  This is Dave – occasionally he gets his own meals.

(Jake took a video of this as well, but it’s too gross, what with the bone-crunching and gut-slurping sounds.  So I’ll just post the still and you can imagine you’re own sound effects.)

(Original text by Nanette Thorell 7/19/2008 (re-posted with minor edits)