Exploring Easter Traditions Through Art

On the Saturday before Easter, college students, professors and community members joined together for a creative learning experience provided by the Mellon Globalization Forum and Otey Memorial Parish. Sewanee Dining generously provided 360 eggs for the event. Chef Rick Wright and his team steamed the eggs, and boiled several dozen in onion skins for Polish drapanki, an elaborate method of decoration that involves delicately scratching off the dye with a needle to reveal the white of the egg.

The Holy Saturday egg-decorating event was led by Jeannie Babb and Justyna Beinek. Babb works with children in the Godly Play program at Otey Parish, and Beinek serves at the University as the Mellon Globalization Forum director and visiting associate professor of international and global studies and Russian. 

Babb, who studied church history at the School of Theology, wanted to help parish and community members reconnect the annual egg hunt to Christian tradition and theology. She and Beinek envisioned the event as a way for people with different cultural backgrounds to explore one another’s Easter traditions while experiencing artistic expressions surrounding the egg. 

Babb prepared a slide presentation outlining the history of Easter eggs, and planned activities for all ages, including standard American dip-dying, egg painting with local artist Carol Sampson and a tie-dye table employing whipped topping. 

Beinek, who is originally from Wroclaw, Poland, brought her mother, Eulalia, and her young daughter, Karolinka, to help with traditional pysanka decorating, which was displayed and practiced in many styles at the event. Beinek enlisted the help of Yuliya Ladygina, a colleague from the Russian department at the University. 

Ladygina, who is from Kyiv, Ukraine, provided instruction in the intricate wax-resist method known as batik. This method involves several repetitions of drawing designs with melted wax using a special stylus, then dipping the egg in a successively richer dye. The wax designs eventually melt away from the egg to reveal the colors beneath the wax.

“Decorating the eggs was a fun and meditative way to spend my Holy Saturday,” said Taylor Yost, a Sewanee senior majoring in Russian, International and Global Studies,  and politics, who spent time at all the tables. “The event fostered an environment where many community members could come together and learn from each other. I had a fun conversation with an international student about Easter egg hunts, which were new to her. She told me about Easter practices in her culture. It also brought a lot of different people across campus together. I saw at least three of my professors with their children and many other families, too.”

At the batik table, participants worked on the same egg for an hour or longer, instructing newcomers how to scoop black beeswax into the special stylus. Even as parish members broke down the other tables and prepared for the upcoming Easter reception, artists at the batik table were still wiping the melted wax from their final creations and making plans for another event. 

“We can continue this,” Ladygina offered. “We have the kits now. We can make more eggs.” 

In Orthodox tradition, there are still five weeks until Easter.

—Reported by Jeannie Babb