Note: correction in date and time of pysanky class in Pinckney. It will be on Saturday, April 12th, not Thur., April 10th, as originally stated.

Tom Tolen / news@whmi.com

Carole Paison teaches a number of arts and crafts at her business - the Michigan Craft House at 516 East Grand River in Howell. One of the art forms she teaches that Paison is most passionate about is pysanky, known popularly as Ukrainian Easter eggs.

Although Ukraine is where the art form is the most widely practiced, it is also popular in other Eastern European countries, particularly Poland.

When we visited the studio Wednesday evening, four women were busily making pysanky during the one-night-only class, although Paison has held other classes this Spring. Paison starts holding the pysanky classes around February 1st, and they continue until Easter.

In its simplest terms, pysanky involves taking fresh eggs, preferably white, waxing them and drawing intricate designs on them. Although many people expel the yolk and albumen from the egg before making pysanky, others leave the egg contents inside.

Paison says the tradition of making pysanky goes back centuries, and actually pre-dates Christianity. In fact, the oldest examples of pysanky that still exist date from the 11th and 12th centuries.

Paison also conducts pysanky classes during the Christmas holiday season and prior to Valentine’s Day.

Another pysanky class - called “Ukrainian Egg Workshop: Gift of Pysanky” will be held on Saturday (April 12) at NautiMI, 9260 McGregor Road, east of Pinckney, at 11 am.
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How to Make Pysanky:

Lightly pencil a design on a washed and dried, uncooked white egg. ...
Heat the bowl of the kitska over a candle, use it to scoop up a little beeswax, heat the kitska again, and draw melted beeswax on the parts of the design that should stay white

To remove egg contents for making pysanky, you can use either the two-hole or one-hole method: poke small holes at opposite ends (two-hole) or a larger hole at one end (one-hole), then blow the contents out.