Windsor Viter Newsletter Part 3
Myron Hlynka
Newsletter of the Ukrainian Canadian Business and Professional
Association of Windsor
Volume 6, Number 2 April, 1996
WINDSOR'S Ukrainian Easter Egg ARTISTS
The Ukrainian Easter Egg, or pysanka (plural pysanky) is a
miniature art form. The word "pysanka" comes from the
Ukrainian verb "pysaty," meaning "to write." The technique of
decorating eggs involves several baths in dye, while
protecting part of the dye color by "writing" a design with
wax. Thus one correctly should talk about "writing Ukrainian
Easter Eggs."
One of the pioneer pysanka artists in Windsor was Olena
Wenger, who passed away in 1995 at the age of 101. Olena came
to Canada (Manitoba) in 1907 and to Windsor in 1936. She began
writing pysanky the first year that she arrived. She was
active with St. Vladimir Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in
Windsor. In 1950, she was president of the Ukrainian Women's
Association in Windsor. Olena's daughter Olga Bazlik and
granddaughters Patricia Knapp and Sharon Drouillard, all write
pysanky. Great granddaughters Karen Bratt and Kathleen Momney
also write pysanky. And finally, great great grandsons 10 year
old Aaron and 8 year old Michael Bratt have even demonstrated
pysanka writing in Windsor area schools.
Most of the members of the Ukrainian Women's Association
have at one time written pysanky. Some of these ladies include
Mary Wachna, Elaine Maslak and her mother Elsie Ostapowich (a
recent arrival to Windsor from Saskatchewan), Marian Hrynkiw,
Olly Drul, Olha Toroshenko, and Mary Hnatiuk. During March of
1996, Elaine Maslak, Elsie Ostapowich, and Marion Hrynkiw gave
classes in pysanka writing at the St. Vladimir Centre.
Among the exceptional pysanka artists of Windsor, we have
to include Helen Zaremba and her late sister-in-law Katherine
Pohoreski. Eighty year old Helen Zaremba was born in
Saskatchewan and has been writing pysanky since 1946. Louis
Pohoreski, Katherine's husband, has created equipment to aid
in pysanka writing and to display pysanky. In a single year,
Helen and Katherine have written as many as ten dozen pysanky.
(They also have a remarkable collection of embroidery patterns
-on paper- most of which they designed themselves.) Helen
Zaremba writes ostrich, goose and chicken egg pysanky. A
museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, has a large collection of
Mrs. Zaremba's pysanky.
Pat Chapski often exhibits her beautifully decorated eggs
at Sts. Vladimir and Olga Church, especially during Carrousel.
She has even created fridge magnets featuring her pysanky.
Aranka Muzyka writes both chicken and goose eggs. When
Windsor Symphony conductor Susan Haig gave a talk to the
Ukrainian Business and Professional Association of Windsor a
few years ago, she was presented with a goose egg written by
Mrs. Muzyka.
Carol Hrycay has a video of pysanka writing available at
the Windsor Public Library.
Anne Masney has been writing pysanky since 1960. She
learned from the late Mary Neprilny who taught pysanka writing
at the UNF Hall. Mrs. Masney has displayed her pysanky at Sts.
Vladimir and Olga Church and at the Multicultural Council of
Windsor (at the old Courthouse). As of the end of February,
she had written about eighty pysanky during 1996! Anne has
written pigeon, dove, chicken, and goose eggs. She has also
done ceramic eggs. She describes her art as "addictive" and
says that she rarely repeats a pattern.
Other talented Windsor pysanka artists include the late
Helena Martyniuk (daughters Ann Taskey and Ollie Stechey have
a collection of pysanky), the late Frances Wenger, and the
late Julia Yaworsky. Morris Prytulak has created some novel
display "cases" for Margie Prytulak's (and other) lovely
pysanky. Sister Metradore is another prolific and gifted
pysanka writer.
Mary Hnatiuk has collected (and commissioned) some very
special pysanky which she has donated to the Museum of
Ukrainian Decorative Folk Art. The museum is housed in the
lower level of St. Vladimir's Cultural Centre in Windsor.
One of our favorites is a pysanka especially commissioned by
Mary Hnatiuk showing the same Kurelek painting as appeared on
one of the 1991 Canadian stamps honoring the Ukrainian
pioneers. Another pysanka has the logo of the Ukrainian
Women's Association. The museum is usually open on Wednesdays,
when pyrohy and holubtsi are sold at St. Vladimir's Center.
We would not be surprised if we have inadvertently omitted
some of the more talented and prolific pysanka artists. If you
are such an artist, or know of such an artist, please let us
know for next year's article.
Still on the topic of pysanky, the 22nd Annual Michigan Egg
Art Show will take place at the Dearborn Civic Center on May 4
and 5, 10 am to 4 p.m. In previous years, Ukrainians were
represented by such artists as Roman Seniuk of Detroit, Karen
Dada of Troy, Sandy Ewasek of Livonia , and Marcia Yoder of
Goshen , Indiana.
THANKS
Thanks to Margie and Myroslaw Prytulak, Anne Masney, Elaine
Maslak, Mary Hnatiuk, and Sister Metradore for some of the
information in this newsletter.
THE HORROR OF CHORNOBYL
1986...Tenth Anniversary...1996
On the twenty sixth of April, the year of nineteen eighty six,
A Chornobyl reactor blew and spewed the death of lunatics
Over vast regions of Ukraine and many other lands beyond ...
Calamity the Kremlin rulers strove so vainly to abscond!
A tragedy, a fear and yes, anxiety that was extreme ...!
Not to the Soviet officials, nor the bureaucracy's esteem,
For they played down the radiation, hushed their negligence and crime...
To top with a new violence the seventy years of Soviet time!
Now, the disaster's aftermath, the grief, the suffering, the pain,
The radiation, ruinous lands, whose then the glory and the gain?
And who pays for this global wreck, has honesty a hand to raise?
And while Ukraine bears sufferance, who rates this perpetrator's craze?
Lands ten years irradiated ... there is a cry for worldly aid!
To decontaminate, assist, the need of drugs ... a world's crusade
To stem this death to innocence, the young and those still to be born ...
For, far too many, young and old, will never see another morn!
This plea goes to each one of us who has a conscience and a heart.
If you have aided, aid some more, if not, it's not too late to start!
And with the Good Lord's hand and yours, other small hands will fold in prayer
And give you thanks you may not hear, but rest assured they will be there.
Peter Kuzyk
Leamington, Ontario
March 4, 1996
--
Myron Hlynka
Dept. of Math. & Stat.
University of Windsor
Windsor, Ontario, Canada