I have been teaching pysankarstvo (writing pysanky) to others almost as long as I have been writing pysanky myself.  My fifth grade teacher, the then Mrs. Suzanne Hunter, reminded me recently that we had held a pysanka class of sorts back in late 60s at Morse Elementary School. (It was probably more of a demonstration.)  Mrs. Johannessen and I did so again, in high school, under the guise of a chemistry experiment, something like “the interactions of aniline solutions with calcium-protein matrices and the esters of long chain aliphatic alcohols*.”

While still in my teens, I taught several visitors how to make pysanky, one of whom went on to create these gorgeous eggs:

I have taught many classes since, and have become much more organized about it.  I taught my nieces  and nephew to write pysanky as soon as they were potty trained. We’ve held classes for their friends and cousins (and their mothers) annually for over a decade.  I’ve written pysanky with the children at our Ukrainian school, with grown-ups at our church, with friends at their houses (around the world), with my nurses and other medical staff in India, and with our orphans at camps in Ukraine.  I even once auctioned off a “home pysanka-making party” for UCARE.

The following pages contain photos of pysanka sessions I have led through the years locally:

At St. Mary’s Church (aka Pokrova)

At my brother’s house in Troy

For photos from more distant paces, go to Pysanky Around the World.  If you would like materials useful for teaching pysankarstvo, go to my Downloads page.

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1. *Translating from chemistry to English:
       aniline solutions: dyes
       calcium-protein matrices: eggshells
       esters of long chain aliphatic alcohols: beeswax
   
   

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