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EDITOR, MISS MILDRED MILANOWICZ—151 Hopkins Avenue Jersey City 6, New Jersey Best wishes (or a happy Easter to our Junior League members and friends of OUR LIFE and Ukrainian National Women’s League of America. A Ukrainian Family Get Ready for Easter By VIRGINIA DUSTIN Reprinted by special permission from the May, 1946 issue of THE FRIEND a periodical published in Minneapolis, Minn . Have you ever held something in the palm of your hand that seemed too lovely to be true ? Many persons have fejt that way when they first picked up a Uk rainian Easter egg and noted its bright glowing colors^ and its ex quisite tracery of lines. Nearly all Slavic peoples practice egg de corating as part of their annual Easter ceremonies, but only in the Ukraine has it reached the status- of a highly developed folk art. This art of waxing and dyeing eggs by a centuries-old batik process has survived transplant ing to a new country and a new continent. It is practiced today in Ukrainian communities from New York to San Francisco. One of the most expert of American Easter egg artists is Mrs. Marie Procai, member of the St. Mich ael's Ukrainian Orthodox church of Minneapolis, whose decorated eggs appear in museum collec tions and are reproduced in an authoritative book by Dr. Wasyl Halich, Ukrainians in the United States. It was this book that gave me my first accidental introduction to Mrs. Procai’s work. Later I heard her artistry praised by Dr. Granovsky of the University fac ulty, a foremost authority on Uk rainian art. To learn still more about her work and .about a Uk rainian Easter I visited Mrs. Pro cai one morning at the family home in southeast Minneapolis. During my visit I had a chance to meet several other members of her family — two sons-in-law re cently discharged from the army and now attending the Universi ty, a young married daughter, and a tiny granddaughter who chattered with equal facility in English and Ukrainian. I had an opportunity to share a typical Ukrainian dish which they pre pared for lunch — borscht — a delicious soup with the flavor and color of fresh new beets. Perhaps all Ukrainians are ar tistic and musical. Even so, I am sure- the Procais are an unusually talented family, even ranked with talented countrymen. Not only are they highly skilled in the crafts of their Ukrainian home land but they have a broad, un derstanding knowledge of her .culture and history Among the Procais at least, egg decorating is a family craft pass ed from one generation to an other. Mrs. Procai says that when she was a little girl in western Ukraine she watched her grand mother wax and dip the tradi tional colored eggs for Easter. When s.he was five years old, however, she was taken by her parents to live in Slavonia, then a part of Austro-'Hungary, and now a part of Yugoslavia, yhere few of the old-time crafts were carried on. Her mother may have decorated eggs on one or two oc casions after that, Mrs. Procai says, but it was not until she came to the United States that she remembered very much about it. Homesick, only fifteen years old, and pretty much alone on her first Easter in Minneapolis, she tried decorating an egg as she had seen her grandmother do a dozen years before. Having no regular waxing tool, she used the metal tip of a shoelace, and the egg came out pretty well. Ever since she has kept up the yearly custom and has taught her chil dren the craft until they are as enthusiastic and skilled as their mother. The decorating is a slow and painstaking process. The design is applied to the egg with hot beeswax or candlewax, depend ing on whether a thick or thin consitency is desired. A writing tool is used, which is a small cone-shaped piece of metal fast ened in one end of a wooden han dle about the size of a pencil. The basic lines are drawn fijrst, then the egg is dipped in a glass of water-soluble dye, the lightest shade first, such as pale pink or blue or yellow, then more wax, then another dye-bath of a deep er shade. The process is repeated until the last dye bath of black or brown or blue, and until the egg has almost lost its identity un der the heavy coating of wax. Not until this coat is melted off in the oven is the final design ap parent in all its full rich color. I can well appreciate the neces sary skill, for some years ago, fascinated by an Easter egg de monstration, I tried decorating some eggs myself. But in my ■hands the “writer” proved stiff and awkward, the eggs were hopelessly round, and the lines went zigzag instead of straight. The result was a wax-dripped floor and a-lot of wild,splotched eggs. But in Mrs. Procai’s hand the writing tool is flexible as an ar tist's brush, the lines run straight The three Procai daughters, Mrs. Luba Perchyshyn, Mrs. Johanna Luciw, and Mrs. Olga Staats, with a display of Ukrainian arts and crafts, most of it done by and belonging to their own family. Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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