Biochemistry’s Bondos finds pysanky cures cornfield blues

Biochemistry’s Bondos finds pysanky cures cornfield blues

BY LINDSEY FIELDER
Rice News staff

It’s amazing what boredom can lead to.

Sarah Bondos, faculty fellow in biochemistry and cell biology, said attending graduate school “in the middle of nowhere” led her to learn pysanky, an ancient form of folk art from Ukraine.

Photo by Jeff Fitlow

Sarah Bondos, faculty fellow in biochemistry and cell biology, was attending graduate school in downstate Illinois when she picked up pysanky, an ancient form of folk art from Ukraine.

Surrounded by cornfields at the University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign, Bondos bought a kit on the Internet to teach herself the skill of decorating eggs using beeswax and dyes. “There wasn’t much to do where we lived,” she said. “So I ordered a kit off the Internet.”
Wax is applied to the shell of an egg using a tool called a “kisky,” a wooden stick with a small copper cone attached to the end. The wax is placed in the cone and melted. The wax then flows out of the tiny cone and onto the egg.

The design process begins by plotting a design — often using the poles and equator of the egg as a basis for the pattern. After marking the egg lightly with a pencil, Bondos draws with wax the areas she wants to remain white. The egg is then dyed in the lightest color for the design — yellow, for example. After the first dye dries, the areas that are to remain yellow are drawn with wax. The egg is then dyed in the next lightest color — pink, for example.

The process continues with applying wax and dipping the egg in progressively darker dyes. Traditionally, pysanky finishes with black dye.
This painstaking method finally pays off when the egg is carefully held over an open flame and the wax melts away to reveal the multicolored design. Bondos then coats the egg with polyurethane and extracts the egg’s insides, leaving behind a fragile, decorated shell.

Photo by Jeff Fitlow

Pysanky eggs dyed by Bondos.

“The time it takes to create each egg depends on the number of colors and the complexity of the design,” she said. “The finer the lines are, the longer it takes to apply the wax.”

With a fragile medium like eggs, Bondos said, pysanky can be a perilous hobby. “I’ve dropped plenty of eggs. When that happens, you just have to start over.”

After 10 years of practicing the art of pysanky, Bondos has a collection of about 60-70 finished eggs at home. “I used to give them as gifts,” she said. “But now that we live in a more interesting place, there’s not as much time for my hobby.”

Bondos’ favorite part of the pysanky process is seeing the end result. “The most fun is at the end when you take all the wax off and you see how the pattern really looks,” she said. “Until then, you’re just hoping it turns out all right. Sometimes it does — and sometimes it doesn’t.”