A selection of Ukrainian pysanky eggs by Lori Radcliff-Woods, administrative assistant in the SIPS Institute for Resource Information Sciences (IRIS), are on exhibit in Mann Library’s 2nd floor reading room through the end of April. Lori traces her interest in the art form to her teens, when she assembled a jigsaw puzzle featuring them.  “I wondered how in the world they were made,” she recalls.  Years later, a community center class hooked her. “I have Polish lineage from my maternal grandmother, so I think that’s part of where the connection comes from,” she says. “I easily lose myself while I’m working on my eggs.”

This Slavic Easter tradition of decorating eggs dates back to pre-Christian times when agrarian people living in what is now Ukraine used eggs as part of spring rituals celebrating the return of the sun that provided light, warmed them and made their crops grow.

Lori “writes” pysanky (the term is derived from the Ukrainian verb pysaty, which means “to write”) year-round, but particularly from late fall to early spring. Simple single-color designs may only take her an hour or less to complete.  Multi-colored eggs with complex designs, brushed-on dyes, and added embellishments such as crystals and ribbons for hanging may take 10 hours or more.

She has donated works to an on-going installation at the Ukrainian Institute of America in NYC and other fundraisers.  The institute’s website relates an ancient Ukrainian legend highlighting the importance of pysanka (singular of pysanky):

“The inhabitants of the Carpathian Mountains in Western Ukraine believed that the fate of the world depended on the pysanka … . Each year, an evil monster — chained to a mountain cliff — sent his henchmen to see how many pysanky were created in the land. If the number was high, the henchmen returned and tightened the monster’s chains. If the pysanka creating tradition subsided, the monster’s chains were loosened and he was free to wander the earth causing destruction.”