Resident revives art of Ukrainian eggs

Most people only decorate eggs at Easter time, but for folk artist Zoria Zetaruk, eggs are a year-round obsession. The award-winning artist has taught Las Vegas seniors Ukrainian pysanky egg art for the past 21 years.

Her mother, a Ukrainian-born immigrant to Canada, taught her the traditional egg art as a way to keep their heritage alive.

Zetaruk started her teaching job as a student. She signed up for an egg art class taught by the director of the Las Vegas Senior Center. The first day of class, the instructor saw Zetaruk's intricate work and announced, "Next week Zoria is teaching the class."

Zetaruk's classes have been popular ever since. Her students get more out of the class than art. Most say they feel like a family.

"I'm still not as good as Zoria," said Delta Anderson, a 9 year student. Even the longest-running students agree.

Sylvia Roberts has come to Zetaruk's classes for three years. She originally learned pysanky art from her Ukranian grandmother and mother when she was 6. Even with a lifetime of experience, she still finds a great deal to learn from Zetaruk's classes.

"Zoria is my main mentor," Roberts said. Thanks to her teacher's encouragement, Roberts now teaches egg art to others at Michaels-Arts & Craft stores across the valley.

Luba Eads and Natalie Pruc, both also of Ukranian stock, pursued apprenticeships with Zetaruk outside of class. Zetaruk is constantly trying to train apprentices so someone can teach if she retires.

"That way, if I should drop dead at any moment, someone else can carry on," she said. So far, the artist has out-lived at least two apprentices.

Over the years Zetaruk has shared her art with everyone from school children to museum patrons. At age 86, she's slowing down, but she still makes time to teach every Monday at the Derfelt Senior Center, and Wednesdays at the Las Vegas Senior Center.

The artist relies on her best students to take the art to those she cannot reach. Joyce Siddiqi, a retired school teacher and long-time egg art student, helps Zetaruk demonstrate the art for school children.

Students in Zetaruk's classes start out with a smooth, perfect egg from either a chicken or a goose, or for the adventurous, an ostrich. Using elastic bands as guides, they draw pencil lines to form a border ring around the egg. Then they sketch in the geometric or graphic lines of their designs. After the design is sketched in pencil, students use an electric Kiska to draw over the design with tinted bees wax. Then the egg is dipped into yellow dye. More wax design lines are drawn and the egg is dipped into increasingly darker colors. One egg can take days to complete. When the dying is finished, students place their egg into a toaster oven for a few seconds to melt the wax.

"Don't leave it in too long or you'll cook it," Zetaruk warned, "In the traditional method, you use a candle to melt the wax, but who wants to fool with that. It takes a half an hour."

The final steps are buffing the egg and spraying it with a clear acrylic coating. Once the finish is dry, a Dremel rotary tool is used to make holes in the top and the bottom. Then, a tiny hand pump is used to blow the egg out of its shell.

"Never blow with your mouth. It can give you high blood pressure!" Zetaruk insisted.

During the blowing process, many an egg is cracked or shattered. But as Zetaruk says, if you don't break a few eggs, you haven't lived.

The folk artist passed her expert egg around the room so students could see what the finished product looks like.

"Don't look too long," she commanded. "I don't want everyone's egg to be the same, so I'm not telling you exactly what I used. Make it the way you want it. I want yours to be different. If we all made the very same kind of egg, it wouldn't be interesting."

While much of her time is spent preparing designs for her students, Zetaruk finds time in the mornings to work on eggs for herself.

"Unless I get up early I can't get to my eggs. Something is always going on -- and I have to play bingo, too," she explained.