Passing It On
More than thirty years ago in my former life (those days before marriage and children) I worked as a registered nurse first in a hospital and then in a doctor’s office. Another life chapter began when I started teaching Body & Soul, an international program that combines faith and fitness. Twenty three years later I’m still leading my fitness class weekly and have also been speaking and demonstrating the art of pysanky to individuals and small groups whenever the opportunity arises.
As I reflect back on all those experiences I noticed a common thread…teaching. I never thought of myself as a teacher before but the more I thought about it, the more it makes sense. Even when I worked as a nurse, the part I liked best was that one-on-one time teaching.
I delight in taking complex topics, breaking them down to understandable pieces, and communicating those ideas in a simple way the listener can grasp. I also love the challenge of coming up with different ways to transmit knowledge to help the student gain success. And I especially love seeing that student’s eyes light up with understanding when the “light bulb” turns on at last.
In a couple of weeks I get to teach another group of fifth and sixth grade students all about this egg art called pysanky. Arts Camp 2013 at Oak Hills Church in Folsom is one of the highlights of my year. Students from first through sixth grade come together for a week of fun and excitement where they explore a particular art and in the process learn more about the God who created them.
If you know of a student who might be interested, it’s not too late to sign up for this great adventure. My class still has a few spots left and I know there are openings in a wide variety of other arts as well. For more information, click here.
Let the fun begin!
Lightning Does Strike Twice!
Last year I had the privilege of seeing a photo of my eggs printed in a beautiful calendar featuring pysanky from artists across the globe. My son, Ryan, did an amazing job photographing a collection of my red eggs which was the featured photo for February.
This year I am thrilled to announce another photo of my eggs appears in a calendar…and once again it’s for February. Click on Incredible Eggs 2013 Calendar to get more information and preview all the pictures.
I guess now I really am “Miss February!”
Pumpkin Choir
Sometimes I let go of my serious side and just play with eggs and dyes and wax. This is one of those times! Happy Halloween all.
My 15 Minutes of Fame
I got a package in the mail this week. 
I knew it was on its way but had nearly forgotten, so seeing it in the postal box and tearing it open brought a Christmas morning thrill. At last, the promised September 2012 issue from the Egg Artistry Guild of Australia. And on page 19 I found an article with my name and some photos of my eggs. I’m practically famous!
In case you’re wondering, here’s the path that led to this article. At the egg retreat in July I took a class on etching emu eggs and posted a photo of the finished egg to my pysanky chat group. The editor of the Australian Guild saw it, contacted the owner of Pysanky USA, the online store that sponsored the retreat, who called me to ask permission to pass on my information. A flurry of emails back and forth and voila, people in Australia are now reading my one page feature. Small world, huh?
My People
Pysanky artists seem to be few and far between here on the West Coast. This art originated in the Eastern European area of Ukraine, Poland, Russia, Lithuania etc. and immigrants brought it to this country. Like my dad’s family, most of them settled on the East Coast or across Canada and not so many came to central California where I live now. As a result it is rare for me to meet others who share my love for creating this type of egg art.
Thankfully the internet has put other artists within my reach. Just over a year ago I joined an online pysanky chat group and began learning new techniques and tips from our discussions. I thought I knew a lot about creating these eggs already, but found a whole new world of fun to explore. These new-found friends willingly shared knowledge and sparked a renewed excitement in me and my work.
A couple of weeks ago I had the amazing opportunity to meet some of these people face to face at a pysanky retreat. Forty of us spent time hanging out together at a beautiful retreat center in Dalton, Pennsylvania. I walked into that place never having met anyone but immediately I felt like I was among “my people.” 
The names I knew became faces as we all spoke the same language and got excited about the same things. Together we took classes, admired each others’ work, freely shared ideas, and continued our own projects.
In short, I lived and breathed pysanky.
I think I just got a taste of heaven.
Happy Blues
In case you couldn’t tell, I love the color blue. For as long as I can remember, blue has brought me joy. In this colorful world, those calm and peaceful blues always capture my eye first. That’s why it has been such a pleasure to immerse myself in creating a batch of blue eggs these last few months. In order to stretch myself artistically, I chose a limited number of simple design elements yet combined them uniquely for each egg. What do you think?
Floral Blues at the Kennedy
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As part of the 4th Annual Spring Flower Show at the Kennedy Gallery you can see some of my classic blue and white eggs in various sizes from quail to ostrich.
Join the artists this Thursday, April 12, from 6 to 8 PM at the Preview Thursday Reception.
And don’t forget the Second Saturday Artwalk April 14 from 4 to 9 PM.
Etching
Normally the designs on these eggs fill the eye with color but if I use the same wax-resist technique in a slightly different way the resulting monotones are surprisingly beautiful.
A bit of explanation here. A brown chicken egg is only brown on the outer surface. Just underneath that dark layer it gets progressively lighter and lighter until the shell become nearly white. To decorate these eggs I use acid to eat away layers of shell and reveal what’s underneath. And by protecting my design with beeswax, I can preserve the darker colors on the finished egg.
As I worked on a sample etched egg for a class, God began to whisper a metaphor to me about the process of etching. Acid is tough on the egg, but getting down to the pure white layer is the only way to reveal the beautiful design created by the darker outer shell.
This is the part that started me thinking. Often when life doesn’t go as planned, I grumble and complain. I like my familiar, dark “outer layers” and that “acid” in my everyday life interferes with my personal agenda. But if I sit in the moment instead of avoiding the hard stuff, I come away changed in some way…hopefully for the better. God can make my deep, dark outer layer into a beautiful, intricate design if I give Him space to work. He doesn’t take away my faults, He just transforms them into a thing of beauty. Wow, that’s a lot to ponder.
Do Over
This time of year often brings thoughts about new beginnings but a profound insight hit me recently. As I reached for a fresh egg to begin yet another project I realized that each egg gives me another chance to have fun, to change my approach, to improve my skill, to make a completely different egg than the last one. In other words, every egg is a “do over.” And I am so thankful that I don’t have to be stuck with the past, but can grow and change and develop as an artist as I work on the next egg.
Here’s the amazing thing though. This principle applies not just to egg art, but to life as well. All of life is one big “potential” when you think about it. Each day is a “do over” that waits for me to move forward one small step at a time. I really like that perspective. So look out 2012, here I come.
Miss February!
Pysanky artists are few and far between here on the West Coast so I was glad to find an online group centered around these eggs. Over the past year I have been enlightened and encouraged not just in this art, but in friendships across the world as well.
Recently one of our more computer literate members put together a 2012 calendar featuring pysanky from group members. As I flipped through a preview of the pages I was surprised and delighted to find a photo of my eggs graces the month of February, which also happens to be my birth month. A wonderful early birthday present! Just call me Miss February.
New at the Ordaz Gallery
Need an excuse to go for a short drive? Come see some of my Christmas pysanky at the Ordaz Gallery in old town Auburn, California. Frank Ordaz, an award-winning oil painter, specializes in portraits and you can chat with him as he works in this downtown gallery/studio Tuesdays through Saturdays.
Arts Camp 2011
What a joy to spend a high energy week teaching kids about art and God. And I don’t say that very often because I highly value my personal, quiet spaces in life. I am definitely not a high-energy extrovert but I love watching kids blossom as they discover their own artist within.
This year’s class was the best ever. My five fifth and sixth grade girls picked up the basics of using the wax and dyes very quickly and soon began experimenting with colors and designs on their own eggs. 
And best of all, as they concentrated our classroom became a tiny quiet oasis amidst the chaos of over 400 smiling kids, helpers, teachers, musicians, and support staff across the Oak Hills Church campus. I think my class, students and teachers alike, especially enjoyed that part of each day.
The week finished on a high note with a Friday night Showcase for all the parents. Afterwards exhausted but excited, I found myself already looking forward to next year’s Arts Camp. Incredible, isn’t it? In spite of the hectic schedule, the crazy hours, and the energy it took many of us felt this same way. It’s a God thing.
In the News
Here’s a link to the May 2011 Sacramento Talent Magazine. Check out page 16 for an article on me and my eggs.
And if you want to see how they are made, come to Bella Fiore on Saturday, May 14 where I’ll be demonstrating the process from 5 to 9 PM.
Layer by Layer
…or Making the Leap from “I Do This Art” to “I am an Artist”
It’s taken me years to actually refer to myself an artist. And I think I’m not alone in my reluctance to claim the label. There is something mysterious and wonderful and scary about that term. If I call myself an artist, then I have to produce art, and be good at art and sell art, and make money selling art, or so we think.
Truthfully the title “artist” is helpful because it describes a way people look at the world…not simply as things you can see and touch and define, but in a way that pierces the thin veil between our finite world and God-breathed eternity. And whether I call myself an artist or not doesn’t change the fact that I am an artist. Simple, huh? Well, not really.
Let me take you layer by layer through my own gradual journey to claiming the title artist.
Layer 1—I Can Create. As did many others, I began exploring creative avenues early in life. For most of us it starts with school projects. Those simple drawings led me to creative writing to playing at miniatures to quilting to cross-stitch to clothespin people and eventually to discovering the fascinating world of pysanky. And now looking back I can follow the thread of creativity through the years.
Layer 2—I Can Do This Egg Thing. Pysanky, the layering of wax and dyes on eggshells, is a simple art yet it holds endless possibilities in terms of color and design. I taught myself the basics from a book and found I loved the challenge presented by each new egg. Even the failures provided valuable lessons as I honed my craft.
Layer 3—I’m Improving. The finished egg was never the goal for me but the process of creating was. I treasured my quiet time creating, leaving the rest of the world behind. My family got to see those works but rarely did anyone else so years of finished eggs lay hidden away in a closet.
Layer 4:
—Am I an Artist? Eventually I began to give away some of these treasured creations to family and close friends. I was so used to seeing these eggs and thinking them commonplace, that the response they evoked surprised me. It made me realize that in sharing my work, I not only gave pleasure to others, I felt incredibly blessed as well. Gradually I let others into the private world of my art, and with much prodding from other artist friends, I “went public” with a solo show at the Art & Soul Gallery in 2006. Developing a website seemed like a reasonable next step but it took years and much hand-holding. Making the eggs is easy, marketing myself and my work is not.
Layer 5—I Am an Artist…I Think. By releasing my work to the world at large, I opened myself to praise and to criticism. This is where real and imagined fears come to the surface and they can paralyze an artist. I know, I’ve been there. And sometimes I’m still there. Thoughts like these race through my head. What will they think or worse, what will they say? What if they don’t like my work, and by extension me? What if my work really isn’t good and no one told me? What if…? I have to remind myself continually that what people think of my art, doesn’t change my work or my passion for it.
Layer 6—I Am an Artist…and So Are You. Having come this far, I sometimes have the privilege of seeing and encouraging other fledgling artists in their own journeys. Being an artist is mostly a solo gig. There’s no getting around the hard, often solitary work it takes to produce art. But because of that, there is great need for community among artists, for standing shoulder to shoulder, for walking together, for helping others to see themselves as God-created artists. Whether we practice our art or not, each of us is an artist and fellow traveler in life’s journey. How much sweeter is the trip when we link arms and help each other along the way.
The Art of Christmas
Oak Hills Church in Folsom, California, houses a lobby art space called the Art & Soul Gallery. This Advent season it featured “The Art of Christmas,” a very atypical collection of Christmas art The show was the result of local artists meeting together regularly for the past few months to encourage each other in creating art based on Scriptures related to Christ’s birth.
If you missed seeing the art in person, you can still enjoy our combined efforts on the Covenant Artist’s website.
But I Repeat Myself
I think I have a high tolerance for repetition. Doing the same things over and over is just part of my job as a mom. Every day the beds must be made (mine, not the boys’s…I gave up on that a long time ago), dishes need cleaning, meals prepared and on and on it goes. There’s weekly laundry and floor cleaning, and monthly chores. Add spring cleaning and fall leaf raking. The list goes on. It’s a never ending cycle of tasks that keep repeating over and over, year in and year out.
I’d be lying if I said it never bothers me, but most of the time it just is, and I keep moving forward to getting 
one more thing done for the day. I never thought much about it before but one of the key aspects of the art of pysanky is the way designs repeat over and over on a single egg. The beauty of the finished egg has a lot to do with its symmetry and the comforting cycle of patterns stretched over the constantly changing curve of the egg. This repetition not only gives the viewer something predictable to expect and enjoy but it also gives the artist a chance to get it right through practice.
As an artist, if I never have to repeat anything, I never get to improve my technique, refine my hand/eye coordination, expand my use of color, or give free flight to my imagination. Repetition can be a prison if I allow it to, but it can also be a teacher and a friend…in art and life as well.
Eggs by Teresa 