Article and Photos by Joshua Maloni

GM/Managing Editor

Rochester-based pysanky egg artist Mia Sohn won Best in Show at the 59^th annual Lewiston Art Festival.

“My heart is so full,” Sohn said. “I don't have words – and I'm a talker, so that's a big deal!”

Sohn was recognized for an intricately and colorfully painted ostrich egg shell.

“This is Ukrainian art form,” she said. “I draw with tiny funnels full of melted beeswax.

“I started this egg last June at the Kenan Center in Lockport, and I only worked on it at shows from June until through September. It took me that many weeks just to do the white part – because you draw with the wax, which you want to keep white, and then eventually you start dying it. But by September, I had heavily penciled in all my sunflower sweet poppies – which I normally don't do, but I was sharing my vision so much on this one.

“I completed it in January. This is ‘I Need a Hero,’ because my references are musical. And I say this is in honor of Mr. (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy (president of Ukraine), who certainly is a hero.”

Sohn works on an assortment of egg shells – quail, pheasant, partridge, duck, goose, emu, rhea (South American bird that looks like a short ostrich), swan, guinea fowl, turkey and “Mrs. Peacock” peafowl.

Of course, fresh eggs are filled, so, “Forty-one years, I ate scrambled chicken eggs every day – and now I can't (laughs)!” Sohn said. “I've been doing this for 48 years, and now maybe once a week I can think about eating an egg – although less scrambled these days. It was a big deal I ate scrambled eggs this morning for breakfast.”

Mostly, Sohn said, she saves the liquid inside for friends.

To begin the process, “I use a Dremel to drill a hole at the bottom,” she noted. “I have a small hand pump that you pump with your fingers. It's got a long, hollow tube. It pushes air in, and that pushes the egg out. And then I have a squeeze bottle with a curved top, and that pumps water in, and then use the hand pump to pump it out.”

Ostrich eggs, Sohn explained, “are kind of pitted like a cantaloupe. They take some work. I acid wash them using a diluted muriatic acid to break down the enamel.”

Mia Sohn is shown working on a chicken egg shell.

Mia Sohn brought a variety of pysanky-designed egg shell artworks to the Lewiston Art Festival.

"I Need a Hero"

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“I was lucky enough to meet someone in Buffalo, 2011, whose farm had gone under, but he held on to boxes of ostrich eggs, waiting for the right thing to do with them – and that was me,” Sohn said. “I bought about 150 empty ostrich eggs from him. … I still have probably a dozen left. And then my friend Jim, he and his husband had access to an ostrich farm, and they kept the best ones for themselves. But occasionally they would say, ‘Oh, we saved this one for you.’ So, I have a couple of really special, extra-smooth ones.”

Sohn “worked on my own for years. I didn't know anybody who did this. And in 2009, I met a woman who said her brother (Jim Hollock) loved eggs and hadn't come to the show I was at. Well, he started emailing me. In June of 2009, he started a Yahoo group for pysanky egg artists. In August of 2009, he started an online supply store. In January of 2010, he started the first line of new dyes, with 40 colors, which was way more than anybody else had seen at that point. He went on to have 85 dyes.”

Sohn said, “He started an online international community, and the Yahoo group went to Facebook.” Conversations took place, artists collaborated, and new color combinations would come to life.

“It just kept sparking creativity, and I hope that I'm helping to do that for everyone still,” Sohn said.

Sohn grew up in Venice Center, New York, which is between Auburn and Ithaca. This was her fourth time competing at the Lewiston Art Festival.

“I think they're doing a wonderful job in bringing in a mix of artists, and also in publicity,” Sohn said of event organizer the Lewiston Council on the Arts. “I did a similar show recently; same kind of temperatures; no crowd.”

Despite the 80-degree temperatures in Lewiston, however, “This place was packed,” Sohn said. “I really think that the Lewiston Art Festival committee is doing a massively good job in promoting this, and sharing art. … I think they're doing a great job.”

Pysanky by Mia, “Real Art on Real Eggshells,” is online at www.pysankyeggbymia.com and www.facebook.com/PysankybyMia.

Sohn also won first place in the mixed media category.

Awards were sponsored by Modern Disposal.

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Lewiston Art Festival photos: