Ukrainian Easter Eggs

On a Monday evening, the week before Easter 2022,  the members of the Rotary Club of Bowen Island participated in a Zoom meeting where Rotarian Lynn Krukowski demonstrating her family tradition of writing beautiful Ukrainian Easter Eggs. The eggs are called pysanky.

Lynn Krukowski has written a full-page illustrated article in the 2022 April 7th edition of the Bowen Island Undercurrent entitled, My Pysanky Story. <<Click to read (you will need a free account with Issuu — or better, buy a copy of the Undercurrent!) .

The creation of the design on the egg is called Writing a Pysanka. Every symbol of the artwork contains a heartfelt message wishing love, joy, happiness, strength, protection, good health, long lives, bountiful harvests, wealth and prosperity. Lynn will discuss her decades-long journey of discovery, the symbolism of the pysanky, and the process of making the eggs.

Lynn writes her designs on fresh raw eggs washed in warm water with a bit of vinegar because the dye takes better on the uncooked shell. The designs can take hours to days to complete as each colour layer gets covered in a protective layer of wax. The first layer of colour is the actual shell which can be white, brown, green, or blue (if you are ever lucky enough to know a local farmer with those kinds of hens — Ameraucanas and araucansa hens are blue egg layers). The next dye would be yellow and the writer progresses from lighter to darker coloured dyes protecting the areas of each colour before applying dye over it.

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