With Easter approaching, the Ukrainian art of decorating eggs — or pysanky — is appearing across Edmonton in community events and seasonal markets. Using a stylus, artists apply melted wax to eggs in stages, dipping the eggs into dyes to build intricate, layered patterns. This process, called writing the egg, reflects years of Ukrainian cultural tradition.
The Alberta Council for the Ukrainian Arts (AUCA) is one of the province’s hubs for pysanky activity. Each year, AUCA hosts an Easter Market, featuring local artisans offering baked goods, fine meats, candles, beadwork, embroidery, rushnyk cloth and pysanky. The market provides an opportunity to see pysanky up close and connect with Edmonton’s Ukrainian-Canadian community.
For pysanky artist Janice Grabler, who will be present at this year’s AUCA Easter Market, the social and educational aspects of pysanky are as important as the art itself.
“I can sit in my basement all by myself for hours and hours, but teaching my grandkids how to do it, teaching other people how to do it, is always really important,” Grabler says. “That’s what keeps the world going around.”
Grabler regularly runs workshops in schools, community halls and small groups, with her most recent workshop pairing baking paska — a traditional Ukrainian bread — with pysanky. For first-time participants, Grabler noted the appeal is in the process itself, in working carefully and creating something their own.
Pysanky artist Daena Diduck has spent more than 20 years demonstrating her techniques in public spaces.
“The biggest thing that I love about the demonstrations is seeing the faces of the people who have memories from their childhood of somebody doing pysanky.”
Diduck recalls a moment at a farmers market when a man bought three pysanky for his then-girlfriend. When she saw them, she began to cry. It turned out she had a treasured plate her late grandmother had made, designed to hold pysanky. The three eggs the man bought perfectly filled the three empty slots on her plate.
“They’re now married,” Diduck laughs. “And I joke with her that I made her cry once.”
The ongoing war in Ukraine has added another layer of meaning to pysanky. Grabler notes the war has brought pysanky artists closer together and has been a way to stay connected to their culture. Diduck echoes this sentiment. She made an ostrich pysanka as a gift for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, given on behalf of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the Ukrainian community.
Diduck will be at the Ukrainian Easter Market in Calgary on March 28, and Edmonton will also host plenty of pysanky workshops and markets for those eager to celebrate and create.
The John Walter Museum will hold an Egg Decorating Workshop on March 28, and the Strathcona County Museum & Archives is hosting Pysanky in the Park Workshops on March 28.
While pysanky have a long history, the survival of the art form in Edmonton relies on local efforts — artists teaching, organizations hosting and participants showing up. For Grabler, keeping the tradition alive is essential.
“I think that’s the most important thing — this is something that needs to keep being passed down.”
The AUCA Easter Market will be held on March 28 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 10554 110 Street NW, Edmonton.
