Traditional pysanky on chicken and duck shells
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In October :
Join me at the Reading Arts Festival at Goggleworks on October 1 and 2. My booth will be located on the second floor. The festival is indoors and features juried artists and artisans in every type of media. My work has also found a new place: City Folk on Prince Street in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. This incredible gallery is a great stopping place when you are touring the country, showing off the rolling hills of Pennsylvania, Amish farms and want to see art that is wearable, usable as well as art that can hang on the wall or be placed on a mantle or piano. City Folk has everything you need to either give as a gift or fill that spot you have left empty all this time because you just haven't found the right thing yet. |
Jennifer lives in scenic West Chester, Pennsylvania with her husband and a menagerie of pets that include two dogs, three cats, some ducks and a parrot with a pond full of fish that lend inspiration to her work.
Pysanky, an egg art know as Ukrainian eggs, is a folk art she has been creating since she was three years old and is still finding new ways and new methods of stretching the boundaries of egg art. Jennifer uses dip pens and watercolor pencil on paper to create her drawings and loves the challenge paint and collage brings in creating two dimensional works.
Pysanky, an egg art know as Ukrainian eggs, is a folk art she has been creating since she was three years old and is still finding new ways and new methods of stretching the boundaries of egg art. Jennifer uses dip pens and watercolor pencil on paper to create her drawings and loves the challenge paint and collage brings in creating two dimensional works.
About me
Work in progress: beeswax on shell
design inspired by ceramic pots
I'm frequently asked how I started writing eggs. My heritage is Polish and Lithuanian so I was born into the custom. I began writing eggs at three. The first eggs were written with a cotton swab dipped in melted wax. My parents did the style of drop-pull where colored wax was written on a dyed egg. These beautiful eggs use the simplest of tools: a pin pushed into the eraser of a pencil.
Later, we began using kistky (styluses that have a reservoir for molten beeswax) to write pysanky in a technique that is exactly like batik on cloth.
I became entranced and fascinated with the storytelling and legends associated with the eggs. We went to museums frequently and I found the Islamic and Eastern sections calling me with the geometric patterns, repetition, movement of line and shape, gorgeous tapestries filled with woven stories lines and the glorious rich color palette so similar to the eggs I grew up making.
Since this was before the internet and the ease of Google, books and trips to natural history and fine art museums filled my mind with an appreciation for the ability of man to tell a visual story with line and dot that could be translated across time. People groups in the Pacific Northwest have patterns that are remarkably similar to Neolithic patterns on Trypyllian pottery which is in what is now Ukraine. The colors are different but the curvilinear designs are the same.
My personal aesthetic is describing the beauty of nature through line and dot using the language of geometry. I love the feel of shells, how different they are, the science of them, how they work with different media, the sound tools make on them. Only paper is as lovely to me as an egg shell. And my work on paper is really just a pysanka that is flat!
I teach private lessons to children and adults in writing pysanky, drawing, painting, sculpture and general art. I can be found at area art centers and galleries.
Later, we began using kistky (styluses that have a reservoir for molten beeswax) to write pysanky in a technique that is exactly like batik on cloth.
I became entranced and fascinated with the storytelling and legends associated with the eggs. We went to museums frequently and I found the Islamic and Eastern sections calling me with the geometric patterns, repetition, movement of line and shape, gorgeous tapestries filled with woven stories lines and the glorious rich color palette so similar to the eggs I grew up making.
Since this was before the internet and the ease of Google, books and trips to natural history and fine art museums filled my mind with an appreciation for the ability of man to tell a visual story with line and dot that could be translated across time. People groups in the Pacific Northwest have patterns that are remarkably similar to Neolithic patterns on Trypyllian pottery which is in what is now Ukraine. The colors are different but the curvilinear designs are the same.
My personal aesthetic is describing the beauty of nature through line and dot using the language of geometry. I love the feel of shells, how different they are, the science of them, how they work with different media, the sound tools make on them. Only paper is as lovely to me as an egg shell. And my work on paper is really just a pysanka that is flat!
I teach private lessons to children and adults in writing pysanky, drawing, painting, sculpture and general art. I can be found at area art centers and galleries.
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My work is available at:
City Folk 146 N. Prince Street Lancaster, Pennsylvania 17603 (717) 803-8807 www.cityfolkonprince.com The Palette & the Page 120 East Main Street Elkton, Maryland 21921 (410) 398-3636 www.thepaletteandthepage.com JAM Gallery 321 East King Street Malvern, Pennsylvania 19355 (484) 328-3553 www.jamgallerymalvern.com I accept commissions given enough time and I can ship anywhere. |
Poppy and Coneflower, ostrich egg, beeswax and dye
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