The Art of Pysanky

YaKenda McGahee: Olga Kobryn is a master at the Art of Pysanky or the
celebrated Ukrainian tradition of Easter egg painting. Olga
explains that Pysanky is a pagan ritual that was later
imbibed into the Christian tradition. Although born and
raised here in America, she strives to preserve this ancient
art that’s been passed down over generations. Today, she’s
a master folk artist highly decorated by local art and
heritage commissions.

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Blank
Canvas. I’m YaKenda McGahee here with Olga Kobyrn
who is a master artist in the Art of Pysanky; I hope I
pronounced that right. That’s the art of her painting,
Ukrainian eggs and it’s so cool. She’s going to give us a
quick demonstration on exactly how this works. Olga first
of all, thank you for joining us.

Olga Kobryn: You’re very welcome.

YaKenda McGahee: I appreciate it. I’m really excited to learn about this. I have
lots of questions. Can I start with a couple of questions?

Olga Kobyrn: Oh try, absolutely.

YaKenda McGahee: So, we have eggs and the eggs of yolks in them, how do we
get from there to here? Where do we start?

Olga Kobyrn: Well, it’s magic.

YaKenda McGahee: I know. It looks some—goes into it.

Olga Kobyrn: Yes. Well, you do start with a fresh raw egg when you
begin the dyeing process and when you do finish and you
have a completed pysanky, in the end you can either leave
it as it is and the contents slowly dries and some of the
gasses escape.

YaKenda McGahee: Now, why do some artists take the yolk out and why do
some leave it? Is it easier to work with if the yolk is still in
there?

Olga Kobyrn: Well, you have the leave the egg whole because the egg
will then go into the dye and sit in the dye. If you have an
empty egg, it will float and it creates problems.

YaKenda McGahee: Interesting and when you shake this [Voice Overlap]

Olga Kobyrn: You can actually hear, yes, you can hear the yolk and in
some cases, the yolk has dried in a certain spot, the egg
dries a little and it will --

YaKenda McGahee: Ah, it will always sit in that position?

Olga Kobyrn: Right.

YaKenda McGahee: Very interesting.

Olga Kobyrn: It will sit in that position. So, these are eggs that have been
dried.

YaKenda McGahee: Now before we move on to the demonstration, can I ask
about the tools? What do we need to do this?

Olga Kobyrn: We use very primitive tools.

YaKenda McGahee: Interesting.

Olga Kobyrn: This is what the ancients used 4000 years ago. We have a
very simple stylus, a writing instrument. The eggs aren’t
actually painted on, they’re written on and the word
pysanky means to write. Pysanky in Ukrainian means ‘to
write.’