In the quiet hum of the Greenfield Public Library’s Makerspace, the scent of melting wax and the steady scratching of styluses filled the air. Here, a mix of friends, sisters and strangers gathered to try out the ancient Ukrainian art form of pysanky.
“Pysanky” comes from the Ukrainian verb “pysaty,” which means “to write.” Instead of writing with a pen, pysanky artists write designs, often ornate geometric and floral patterns, with wax that drips through a kistka, a stylus with a small funnel, and instead of paper, the crafters draw on a canvas with a curve: hollowed out eggs.
For pysanky, artists must also set their kistkas down to drop the egg in dyes, creating layers of lines, doodles and symbols that collide in a final colorful design.
“I like the process of it,” said Francesca Passiglia, the Teen Librarian at the library who ran the March 18 class. “It’s not just like drawing in your sketchbook — you’re drawing on an egg. It’s experimental, and you don’t know how the dyes are going to mix.”
According to the University of Kansas, archeologists have found traces of the tradition in Ukraine’s footprint dating back as far as 1300 B.C. In the 12th and 13th centuries, women in the former East Slavic state of Kyivan Rus crafted ceramic pysanky with pink and red clays and buried them in children’s and women’s graves.
The meaning of pysanky designs has shifted throughout the art form’s history, along with the symbolism of the egg itself, from pagan symbols and nature motifs before the spread of Christianity to triangles that represent the Holy Trinity and chicks to capture fertility in Western Ukraine, according to the University of Kansas and a 2023 Time article.
The art form’s popularity plummeted when Ukraine was under Soviet rule, but the tradition refused to fade. Since the country regained independence in 1991, the art form has flourished.
Signature symbols today include straight, looping and waving “eternity bands” that represent harmony, immortality and motion; flowers for fertility, beauty and abundance; “ruzha,” a star with eight points for the tips of the sun’s or stars’ rays; triangles for the Holy Trinity or a pagan symbol for the mother, father and child, earth, air and water, or birth, life and death; spirals to represent a snake, a mark of protection, and other designs, according to the University of Kansas’ list.
Although pysanky designs often require an egg-sact kistka stroke, Passiglia prefaced the March 18 class by encouraging the participants to quiet their inner perfectionists and fall into the fun of the process.
While some of Passiglia’s pysanky eggs feature the traditional symbols, others are more abstract, crawling with wild squiggles. The lifelong pysanky crafter said she loves to put her own twist on traditional crafts with the “strange and modern.” For her next eggs, she plans to draw black cats and cheeseburgers.
The Greenfield Public Library held an egg-decorating event in it’s Makerspace on Wednesday. Community members got to learn a wax resistant egg dyeing method called pysanky. Credit: HALEY BASTARACHE / For The Recorder 
Marlene Felton, of Millers Falls, and Karen Collins, of Turners Falls, decorate eggs at the Greenfield Public Liibrary on Wednesday. Credit: HALEY BASTARACHE / For The Recorder 
Turners Falls resident Karen Collins decorates an egg at the Greenfield Public Library on Wednesday. Credit: HALEY BASTARACHE / For The Recorder 
The Greenfield Public Library held an egg-decorating event in it’s Makerspace on Wednesday. Community members got to learn a wax resistant egg dyeing method called pysanky. Credit: HALEY BASTARACHE / For The Recorder 
Turners Falls resident Janet Graves practices melting wax as part of the process of pyansky. Credit: HALEY BASTARACHE / For The Recorder
Although Passiglia earned an art degree, she struggled over the last 20 years to carve out the time for her calling for arts and crafts. Now, pysanky dyes, kistkas and sketchbooks leave little room for food on her dining room table.
“I feel like I’m finally making time in my life for arts and crafts,” she said. “It’s keeping me sane.”
Passiglia decided to bring pysanky, one of her favorite crafts, back after the popularity of last year’s classes at the library.
For Gloria Arfer, a Greenfield resident who refurbishes vintage finds like furniture, the precision of pysanky was an art form far removed from her typical “handwork.”
Arfer said the class created a space for strangers to learn the craft and come out of their shells.
“It brings people together,” Arfer said while tracing the tips of leaves with her kistka.
“The point of every class is to have people come together, it’s an escape,” Passiglia said of the many Makerspace classes where strangers learn a new skill together, from pysanky to needle felting, crocheting and even crafting cardboard bugs.
“People walk through the door, they don’t know each other, and you sit down, everybody’s sort of apprehensive because they’re learning something new,” Passiglia said. “Then, they let their guard down and they start chatting with each other.”
The class started with nervous giggling and self-deprecating comments about shaky hands. By its close, the eight participants left with bright interconnected lines and leaves on their eggs.
“Where else do you find something like this?” Passiglia said.
