By Elizabeth Stieber
Times Staff Writer
Ted Leszcynski held up a bright red egg for a group of students to see. White flowers and yellow leaves were drawn on it.
He told the students they, too, could learn how to draw on the eggs with various colors and designs.
“Awesome,” one of the youngsters whispered as Leszcynski demonstrated how it’s done.
Fifth-graders from the St. John Cantius Elementary School in Bridesburg and third-graders at the St. Adalbert Elementary School in Port Richmond, both traditionally Polish Catholic schools, got a lesson in the beautifully unique Polish Easter egg decorating method called Pisanki last week at the Polish American Cultural Center Museum in Old City.
Leszcynski, of Phoenixville, offers the demonstration every year at the museum, something he has been doing for nearly 15 years. His wife, Helen, helps out.
It’s a tradition the married couple of 51 years have passed on to their children, and want to pass on to others.
“It’s an Easter custom and it’s great for kids,” said Theresa Romanowski, the museum’s events coordinator.
It took the students a little time to figure out how to master the technique, but they got the hang of it.
Leszcynski teaches Pisanki every year “to carry on the tradition, because if you don’t carry on the tradition, it gets lost,” he said.
Unlike the more common egg-decorating method today, which uses hard-boiled eggs so that the shell can be peeled and the egg eaten, Pisanki decorators use hollowed raw eggs, and the completed creations can be kept forever.
Helen Leszcynski said she tries to buy eggs from farmers rather than at the supermarket, where the eggs usually have been cleaned chemically.
“The dyes don’t adhere as nicely,” she said of store-bought eggs.
The egg typically is hollowed out. Helen uses a syringe to poke a tiny hole in the egg and slowly forces air into it. The egg white and yolk ooze from the hole, a draining that takes about 20 minutes, she said.
She then squirts water inside the hollow egg, again using the syringe, to clean it. The egg is set out to dry for about three days, and the small syringe hole is plugged with a small drop of beeswax.
The egg is decorated using a kistka, or brass stylus, that has been heated with a candle flame and dipped in beeswax. The kistka’s wooden handle protects the decorator from the hot brass.
Using the stylus, the decorator draws designs with beeswax, which appears as a grayish color on the egg. Once the designs are finished, the decorator lets the egg sit in a dye, which can be found in any craft store, for about 20 minutes.
After the egg is dyed and dry, the decorator removes the beeswax by holding it to the side of a candle flame and lightly wiping it off, revealing a white design. Another design is drawn on the egg, which is placed in another color dye.
This time, when the decorator removes the beeswax, the designs are the color of the first dye. The process can be repeated once or twice more to create multiple designs in different colors.
It takes about three hours to decorate each egg.
“They last indefinitely if you’re careful with them,” said Helen, who keeps eggs she has created or received as gifts in a display case.
Pisanki kits are available at craft stores and at the Polish American Cultural Center Museum.
Pisanki, as well as other similar variations on egg decorating, is a central European tradition dating back 1,500 to 1,800 years, Ted Leszcynski explained.
Ancient Slavic pagan tribes decorated eggs, which were symbols of birth and new life, every spring to honor the season or give to loved ones as gifts, he explained.
When Christianity was introduced and later accepted by the Slavic tribes about a thousand years ago, egg-decorating became affiliated with the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
“When the Christians came to central Europe, the Slavic tribes adopted the resurrection of Christ as the celebration of new life,” Leszcynski said.
Today, Polish Catholics often have a priest bless the decorated eggs before they are given as Easter gifts.
The egg-decorating tradition also can be found in other central European countries, though the designs and methods may vary from region to region.
Pisanki, which means “to write,” is characterized by its designs and patterns, which often feature floral drawings. A similar artistic method called Malowanki, which means “to paint,” involves painting designs on the eggs.
But regardless of the method, Pisanki and the other forms of decorating eggs are traditions still practiced, and the creative eggs are popular Easter gifts.
“It’s a custom carried on today,” Ted Leszcynski said.
Ted, who is Polish, and Helen, who is Ukranian, said they learned the egg-decorating tradition from their parents, who were immigrants.
Helen passed the tradition on to her daughter, also named Helen, who decorates eggs and sells them in Reading, Pa. ••
Reporter Elizabeth Stieber can be reached at 215-354-3036 or estieber@phillynews.com