2015
I wrote a lot of pysanky in 2015, but not all of them became gift pysanky. A large number of the pysanky below were “one offs”– written to see what the would look like. I do this mostly when using Elyjiw as a source of designs, as many of the photos used in the book are either old, or the pysanky being photographed were old and faded. What looks odd and boring can be quite exciting when written with bright new colors, and what looks initially interesting can sometimes prove not to be quite what I wanted.
Most of the eggs I wrote and which are pictured in the photo above are traditional folk designs. The more I write them, the more I grow to love them. Exceptions are three: 1) a few simple star pysanky that are modifications of traditional designs, 2) Elyjiw’s “Diasporan” pysanky and 3) my own brown egg pysanky.
Elyjiw wrote his book in the diaspora, and was limited to pysanky he wrote from older sources (e.g. Kulzhynsky) and pysanky he photographed in the collections of others. In the latter category, provenance was sometimes questionable. He included only pysanky which he thought were probably folk designs, but which he did not have sufficient evidence for their place of origin, and labelled them “Diasporan.” Those constitute about 10% of the book, and are often quite interesting designs.
It is interesting to note, too, that many of the pysanky Elyjiw collected are no longer being written in their places of origin. There was much suppression of pysankarstvo in the Soviet Era, and much folk knowledge was lost. Although the art is being revived, the chain of knowledge, designs and techniques being passed form one generation to another, has been lost.
Folk pysankarstvo progresses, too, sort of, as designs evolve within traditional parameters. This is particularly true among the Hutsuls and Pokuttians, where pysankarstvo survived “in the wild,” at least in part due to market pysankarstvo. The writing of pysanky for sale ensured the preservations of the craft, but market forces and modern tastes have changed the designs being created.
