Northern California Eggstravaganza 2018
Northern California Eggstravaganza 2018- “Winter Wonderland“
Crowne Plaza Northeast 5321 Date Avenue Sacramento, CA 95841
Show and Sale
March 3, 2018–10 AM to 5 PM
March 4, 2018–10 AM to 3 PM
Seminars
March 1-4, 2018
It’s time to get these dates on your calendar. I’ll be selling my pysanky and egg jewelry in the showroom plus teaching two classes on Saturday morning, March 3. For more class info, click here.
My Happy Place
Wow, I just spent a week teaching “Pysanky for All” at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina, and I declare to one and all…this is my happy place.
Farm House, my home for the week.
For those who are not familiar with the Folk School, think of summer camp…only year around…for adults…filled with folk art classes…on 300 beautiful acres of gently rolling hills and woodlands…with other like-minded life-long learners. That should give you the beginnings of an idea of this place.
Years ago my sister and I attended an artisan bread-baking class there. In spite of the misty cold January weather, we had a blast baking all week long. With our fellow students we started with basic breads and then experimented with sourdoughs, crusty ciabattas and even got to bake in the wood-fired hearth oven right there in the kitchen. The communal meal-times offered lots of opportunity to meet fellow students and instructors from around the country. I fell in love with this whole concept of non-competitive, cooperative learning based on the Danish “folkhojskole” or folk high school and I knew I wanted to come back someday and teach.
It took me a few years to gain enough experience teaching and then a few more years to work up the courage to apply, but I was delighted to teach for the first time in June 2016. And even more delighted when they asked me back for this year’s class and scheduled me for October 7-13, 2018.
This year’s class of eight students exceeded my expectations greatly. On Monday morning we worked our way through an introductory egg to learn the basics. Step-by-step through the next few days they gained skills and confidence so that by the end of the week they were designing and completing their own masterpieces. We bonded as a group quickly and constantly helped each other by calling out, “Did you plug your egg?” as one or more students headed for the dye table. “Show and tell,” was followed by oohs and aahs as the finished eggs made their way around the class.
Finished class eggs from our week together.
Saturday and the end of our stay came too quickly, but with the hope of a return trip next year, we parted as long-time friends instead of students and teacher. That’s a really good feeling in my book.
The total eclipse was a wonderful unexpected extra.
Art Immersion Week at the Studio
For the first time we are offering a whole week of classes at the Studio at Oak Hills Church in Folsom, California. Think of it as Arts Camp for older youth and adults. Featuring ceramics, drawing, painting, paper crafts and egg art on five different nights, classes begin Monday, July 24, 2017. Check here for more details and to register for one or more classes.
I’ll be teaching the beginning pysanky class on Friday, July 28th from 6:30 to 8:30 PM. Sign up early to get a discount and reserve your spot.
Time to Register
If you have a 5th or 6th grader who’d like to learn how to create pysanky, here’s a great opportunity. Every year Oak Hills Church in Folsom, California, hosts a week-long Arts Camp for incoming 1st through 6th graders. This year I’ll be teaching a class on pysanky and as of today there are only three spots open so don’t wait too long to sign up your student
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Only Two More Spots!
Wow! The new catalog of classes for the John C. Campbell Folk School just came out a couple of weeks ago and my “Pysanky For All” class August 20-26, 2017, is nearly full. This is such thrilling news for me because it means I get to go back to that lovely spot in North Carolina and “play eggs” for a whole week with students of all skill levels.
I love teaching beginners. My favorite part is watching their faces as they remove the wax from their very first egg and see the colorful results. And I love seeing their excitement as they progress through the week, improving in skill and beginning to come up with design ideas on their own.
I also love teaching those already experienced with this wax and dye process. Helping them stretch their artistic muscles as they work with new colors, or techniques, or styles is great fun for me. I learn almost as much as they do as we work through the week together.
Here is a photo of the work my class did for the big “Show and Tell” celebration at the end of the week. Didn’t they do a great job? I feel like a proud parent!
The Northern California Eggstravaganza 2017
Secrets of the Enchanted Forest
Show and Sale February 25-26, 2017
Seminars February 23-26. 2017
Crowne Plaza Northeast
5321 Date Avenue
Sacramento, CA 95841
The 2017 Show is fast approaching. I’ll be teaching two classes and selling eggs and egg jewelry in the showroom. Take a look at the show website here.
And see here for more information on the beginning and Trypillian classes I’ll be teaching.
Two More Classes Coming Soon!
This just in…Two Ukrainian Egg Workshops on Saturday March 12, 2016
9:30 AM to 12 PM — Introductory Class
This basic class is for anyone who wants to take the first steps in making these colorful eggs. No previous experience or skill needed.
1 to 3:30 PM–Trypillian Egg Decorating
In this class we will use the same layering of wax and dyes as in the introductory class, but work on a very different style of Ukrainian egg.
To sign up contact Carmichael Recreation and Park District. For more details and to register, click here.
Save the Date!
It’s never too soon to start planning for summer fun. And if you want fun, friendship and unhurried time to explore the art of pysanky then this retreat should go right to the top of your list. Beginner to expert skill levels are all welcome.
Pysanky USA Retreat 2016
July 12-16, 2016
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
A little unabashed advertising here…I will be teaching “Quilt-inspired Eggs” and “Egg Mosaics” classes at this retreat and there are lots of other great classes by a variety of very experienced teachers.
Here is the website for more info.
Arts Camp 2015
Another God-breathed, fun-filled week at Arts Camp at Oak Hills Church in Folsom, California.
Big News!
I cannot begin to describe how excited I was when I found this catalog in my mailbox. 
It means finally I can officially announce that June 12-18, 2016 I will be teaching a pysanky class at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina.
The Folk School is like year-round summer camp for adults in a beautiful farm-like setting but is it so much more than that. They emphasize non-competitive learning in all kinds of different folk arts…from quilting to blacksmithing to cooking, writing, woodturning, and music to name just a few.
Years ago my sister and I attended an artisan bread-baking class there and we loved everything about that experience. I had always dreamed of going back, but going back to teach an egg class is a dream come true.
Got plans for next June? Come on down.
A Taste of Heaven
Five days of “playing eggs” with friends old and new, now that is my idea of what heaven is like. I just got back from the Pysanky USA Retreat 2015 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and am still on a pysanky high. Together with 70 other pysanky artists we spent our days giving and teaching classes, hanging out in the play room working on eggs, and catching up on each other’s lives. True community at its best.
This is a far-flung group to say the least. One person came from Japan and not only that, she comes from the same city where I was born. Such a small world, isn’t it? Another spent this last year on the medical ship Mercy Africa in Madagascar. Many folks came from the Northeastern states but we had attendees from the South, the Midwest, the West Coast and also Canada.
Here are just a few photos to give you a taste of my personal heaven.
It’s Official
I’m going to summer camp again! This year’s Pysanky USA Retreat in Pennsylvania promises to be bigger and better than ever. I’ll be teaching a couple of classes and taking a few from other teachers but more importantly I’ll get to reconnect with “egging friends” from across the country. For five days the outside world falls away as I explore new ideas, learn new techniques, and catch up with others who share my love of pysanky. I can hardly wait!
Sound interesting? This event is a great place for all skill levels, from “I’ve never dyed an egg before” to “I’ve been creating these eggs for 30 years.” If you want to join the fun, here’s the link for more details.
Summer Camp for Me!
Doing what you love is a good thing…but doing it with a bunch of other people who also love it is an amazingly good thing. I spent last week in Pennsylvania with 60+ other pysanky artists at an egg retreat learning, teaching, connecting and laughing with friends old and new. To put it simply, I went to summer camp for adults…and I highly recommend it.
This is my third year attending the Pysanky USA Retreat. I took a few classes, taught a few classes and mostly hung out in the “play room” where we could work on our own projects as we talked and shared about egg art and life in general. The room population ebbed and flowed throughout the day as classes started which allowed me to meet new people with the luxury of unhurried time on our side. Free flowing ideas sparked new techniques, new color combinations, new dyes to try. Wow, my brain got full fast!
I came away from this week not only with a renewed enthusiasm for this art but with a sense of community and connectedness to my fellow pysanky artists across the country. And I’m already looking forward to next year!
Arts Camp 2014 Recap
Here’s a glimpse of our week at Oak Hills Church Arts Camp!
God blessed me with 12 wonderfully creative 5th and 6th grade girls, two loving shepherd helpers and a calm and cheerful assistant teacher this year. Together we learned about God and His love for us while we learned the art of pysanky and how to create these jeweled wonders. We also learned that occasionally eggs break but life goes on because you get to start over on a new egg.
All valuable life lessons in my book.
Egg Classes in April
Want to learn how to create these lovely eggs? Along with the Ukrainian Heritage Club of Northern California I am teaching an introductory and a “next step” class on Saturday, April 5, 2014.
La Sierra Community Center
5325 Engle Road
Carmichael, CA 95608
Introductory Class–9:30-11:45 AM
No experience necessary for this class.
Next Step Class–1-3:30 PM
If you’ve made these eggs before and want to learn a new technique, this is the class for you.
You can get more information and sign up through Carmichael Recreation and Park District or call 916 485-5322.
Broken Bits
Maybe it’s my “almost-an-empty-nester” stage but more and more I find myself taking stock of where I am in life, where I thought I would be at this age, and wondering what I will become in the future. And of course those dreaded comparisons and regrets start creeping in. The what-ifs and why-didn’t-I’s can all too easily overwhelm me and take away the joy of the present.
A while back I came across a line about allowing God to transform the broken places in your life into prisms. Can’t you just see that? What a beautiful word picture of redemption and hope. That idea has been rolling around in the back of my head for a while and so I began to review my life again. What if I start looking at my faults as prisms reflecting God’s beauty outside of my selfish little world? How this happens I don’t know but I’m holding onto God’s goodness and grace and letting Him be in charge, or at least I’m trying to.
I love when God whispers His truth to me through my art. I love it even more when I pay attention and actually listen. Over the years I have collected quite a pile of broken eggs. Some were completed and accidentally cracked. Some didn’t turn out as I’d hoped and were abandoned partway through the process. I couldn’t bring myself to toss any of them so they just sat in a drawer collecting dust. Every time I opened the drawer they shouted at me that I had failed in some way.
Now what if I used those broken bits somehow? Could I really transform them into something more? After a lot of experimentation I can finally say yes.
These egg mosaics have been a challenge and a delight to create. I’m still discovering new ways to improve my designs and having fun in the process. Not only that, I will be teaching a class on this technique at the Pysanky USA retreat in Pennsylvania next week.
So this is what redemption looks like.
Arts Camp 2013
There is nothing better than combining kids and God and art all at the same time. That’s what Arts Camp at Oak Hills Church does…and does very well I might add. Our Children’s Pastor, Colleen Gray and her amazing team turn our church campus and hundreds of volunteers into a smooth-running, exciting, enthusiastic machine where nearly three hundred kids get to experience God for a whole week through arts such as Dance, Theater, Music, Visual Arts, Creative Craftsmanship, and Culinary Arts.
The seven fifth/sixth grade girls in my pysanky class accomplished much more than any previous year’s class. Most of them finished four eggs and some more than that. I beamed as they proudly showed their parents the results of their focused work in class. And their excitement spilled over at home as parent after parent reported back to me how their child couldn’t stop talking about their eggs and how sad they were when Friday finally arrived.
It’s an exhausting week but well worth the effort. After a few days of restorative quiet here at home, I find myself wondering…is it too soon to start looking forward to Arts Camp next year?
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!
Eggs by Teresa 