Photos: Artist teaches ritual Ukrainian egg-decorating process

Peter Ollove, left, and Martha Ollove work on making pysanka Saturday at The Michael Klahr Center in Augusta. The Holocaust and Human Rights Center hosted 25 students for the class led by Maine-based artist Lesia Sochor, a painter who practices the ancient ritual of transforming an ordinary egg into a “pysanka” by decorating it with ancient, often colorful designs steeped in symbolism. The word pysanka translates as “to write” or “to inscribe” and describes a Ukrainian tradition during Easter time, dating back to 5,000 BC.

Holding a tool called a kistka, Lesia Sochor demonstrates how to draw a design with beeswax on a chicken egg Saturday at The Michael Klahr Center in Augusta. A metal tipped tool called a kistka, once heated with a candle flame is dipped into beeswax and used to draw intricate designs on the egg shells with wax. Sochor summed up the process as heat, dip and draw. Once the wax dries, the eggs are dipped into a jar of dye. More patterns can then be made before it is dipped again into a different color of dye.

Lesia Sochor shows participants an ostrich egg that she decorated. Sochor was teaching a class Saturday at The Michael Klahr Center in Augusta.

A class participant pulls an egg out of a jar of dye Saturday at The Michael Klahr Center in Augusta.

Martha Ollove uses a metal tipped tool called a kistka to draw designs on a chicken egg Saturday during a pysanka class at The Michael Klahr Center in Augusta. Sochor summed up the process as heat, dip and draw. Once the wax dries, the eggs are dipped into a jar of dye. More patterns can then be made before it is dipped again into a different color of dye. This wax-resist process means the wax protects the original color of the shell and any layer of dyed color under subsequent layers. The final pattern is revealed when the hardened wax is removed at the end of class.

An egg sits in a jar of yellow dye during a class Saturday at The Michael Klahr Center in Augusta.

A basket of pysanka made by Lesia Sochor is on display during a class Saturday at The Michael Klahr Center in Augusta.