Betty Christenson's Art for Easter

It is life itself she holds in her hands.

The ancient symbol of fertility and the hope of future generations are both embodied in this smooth, white egg. Nothing is intrinsically special about it; she, like everyone else, gets them by the dozen at the grocery store.

But for 40 days each year, the ordinary becomes sacred in Betty Christenson’s hands. Only during Lent, the season of penitence for many Christians lasting from Ash Wednesday until Easter, does she create a tiny masterpiece from each egg.

With a simple stylus, colored dyes, beeswax, and a skill learned a quarter of a century ago at the side of a Ukrainian priest, Christenson treats the fragile oval as a canvas, revealing a message to anyone who knows how to read the intricate patterns of line and hue. It is the centuries-old art of pysanky (pronounced peh-SAHN-key).

“My ancestors could neither read nor write, but this art was a way of talking to God,” says Christenson, 70, who lives with her retired husband on the land her Ukrainian immigrant parents homesteaded when they came to this country.

Each color has its own meaning; every shape symbolizing something different. And those meanings and symbols vary greatly from region to region, lending a mystery that keeps the art form from ever becoming too familiar, Christenson says.

In the old country, a simpler form of the art called krisanki— designs etched into a single-hued egg—was practiced to create offerings to God, as well as gifts to family and friends. They were planted at the ends of furrows so God would grant a bountiful harvest; a young woman might make a special egg for a certain young man she had her eyes on.

Even today, Christenson says, “pysanky are exchanged as a token of affection during the days of Easter holiday” and placed on the graves of loved ones “so they can receive the Easter greetings of God.”

Pysanky is important to Christenson not only because it keeps her in touch with her heritage, but also because it is a beautiful reminder of a vow she made to her mother years ago.

A promise kept

Stephan and Ustyna Pisio were born in the same region in late 19th-century Ukraine but didn’t meet until each had immigrated to America in the early 1900s. They married in 1914—becoming American citizens in 1922—and farmed on 80 acres of land in the little village of Suring in northern Wisconsin, where they raised nine children.

It was not an easy life. No other Ukrainian families lived in the area, Christenson says, and neither of her parents spoke English. Not until their two oldest children began attending class in the little one-room schoolhouse did they learn the language, practicing the words their children brought home each day.

“Once my dad learned English, he loved this country,” Christenson says.

Stephan Pisio did everything he could to help his family fit in and feel like Americans. No Greek Orthodox Ukrainian church existed in Suring, so he raised the children as Roman Catholics. He Americanized their last name, changing it to Piso.

But Ustyna was determined that her American children would not forget their Ukrainian roots. She kept up the traditions of the old country, like the simpler krisanki, she hid for the children every Easter, colored with dyes from beets and berries.

But it soon dawned on young Betty that these were no ordinary Easter eggs.

“I said, ‘Mama I don’t think the Easter bunny makes these kinds of eggs’—I was about 8 years old—and she said, ‘I was wondering when one of you kids was going to ask me about these eggs.’”

The very next Easter, Christenson’s mother began teaching little Betty how to make the krisanki. In fact, all of the children learned to decorate the eggs, but only Christenson still practices the art. Ustyna Piso’s fervent hope was that her daughter would learn the more intricate skills of pysanky to keep the Ukrainian art form alive. She extracted a promise from her daughter.

“I promised my mother before she died I would never give this up. She said, ‘Never forget who you are and what you are; you are a Ukrainian.’”

True to her word, Christenson visited a Ukrainian priest in Canada in 1975 and spent three days learning the intricacies of pysanky. The memory of those lessons remains sharp—the priest’s broken English as he described how to apply the colors and the hot wax and the special dyes used only for pysanky.

As the years went by and Christenson became more skilled, her children took the beautiful eggs to school and teachers took an interest. She soon was teaching classes in pysanky and gained renown as an artist.

Her work has been displayed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and she was a 1996 National Heritage Fellow, a prestigious honor awarded by the National Endowment of the Arts.

But Christenson has never practiced the art for profit or fame. As she speaks about her pysanky, it is clear why she spends hours upon hours each year drawing diamonds and dots and lines and symbols on raw eggs dipped in different colors over and over.

Pride and affection and respect are evident in her voice as she talks about her mother and the legacy she left behind.

“What I do,” Christenson says, “is an honor to my mother.”

A tradition continued

Sometimes her hands are itching to cradle the egg and lay down the lines of melted wax with the simple stylus called a kistka (pronounced KIST-ka). But Christenson—who has been known to wake up in the middle of the night and sketch a design on a scrap of paper while it’s still fresh in her mind—won’t break with tradition: She works on the eggs only during the 40 days of Lent.

“As far as my pysanky is concerned, I stick to tradition,” she says.

She spends many hours on each egg, which she then gives to family and friends. The longest she ever spent on a single egg was two and a half weeks; it was an ostrich egg.

The egg must be raw; the dyes specially purchased for this very purpose. Her late-night design inspirations aside, Christenson usually decides how to decorate an egg as she goes along, waiting for the pattern and color to reveal themselves to her.

“Everything that is on an egg has a meaning. Orange stands for strength, green stands for trees and freshness and earth, red stands for blood and the suffering of Christ.

“It isn’t only that it’s so beautiful, it has so much meaning. The dots that we put on stand for Mary’s tears. Wheat stands for bountiful harvest ... and, of course, crosses stand for Christianity. Flowers are for love and happiness.

“There is no end to what you can do,” she says.

The artist always starts with the lightest color first, going from light to dark. Wax is used as a resist—wherever wax is laid, that color is preserved as the egg is further dipped in other, progressively darker colors. When all the colors are laid and the designs in place, the wax is carefully, painstakingly melted off over a candle flame.

“It is really such a simple art and such an inexpensive art. The only thing it takes is a lot of patience and love. You make one little mistake and you have to start over.”

With only 40 days to work on her beloved eggs, Christenson makes the most of her limited time. In the weeks before Easter, her family understands if furniture is not dusted and beds left unmade.

Though many artists use blown eggs—in which tiny holes are pricked in the eggshell and the contents blown out—Christenson, of course, is a purist. For preservation’s sake, however, her husband and six children know they can carefully prick the eggs themselves once they’ve received them as gifts.

Christenson has taught the art to each of her six children, though none of them have yet taken it up. But Christenson hopes some of them will, and soon.

While her hands are still steady and her eyesight sharp, she’s realistic about how many years she’ll still be able to practice the craft she loves so much.

“I think the older I get—I’m 70—the more it means to me. It seems so much in life is being forgotten,” she says.

“I will continue doing it until I can’t do it anymore. My daughters have promised me they will do this, when they have time.”

They are, after all, Ukrainian. Just as her mother before her did, Christenson hopes that lesson sets in sooner or later.

“Like Mama says, don’t ever forget who you are and what you are.”

Ellen Margulies is an editor, artist, and freelance writer.

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