MARGARET TARRIS BAUER is of Lemko Ukrainian and Polish ancestry. A family tradition was to keep Good Friday quiet, without television or radio " instead I spent Good Friday making pysanky keeping the day reverent. As a girl of 12, I learned to make pysanky from a man at our local Ukrainian Home in Passaic, New Jersey. I watched him take a raw egg and with a simple wooden kistka and melted bees wax, write a perfect equator line, using the sharp skill of a master pysankar. He also showed me how to attach a straight pin to the end of a pencil eraser and use this as a stylus for applying the wax in the Lemko style. Today writers use a copper, metal or electric kistka. I make pysanky all year round and have taught others in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, sharing the legends traditions and techniques of this ancient art.
I am a member of the International Egg Art Guild and am working towards a Masters Level of writing Pysanky.
www.pysankybasics.com