𓆣 Easter Eggs

This year for Easter, I decided that I would attempt to use the ancient Egyptian hieroglyph, hpr, ( or 𓆣  ) on dyed eggs.  Hpr is an ideogram of a dung-beetle, and is used in words like "manifest" and "becoming."    In ancient Egyptian iconography, the dung-beetle is shown with a sun disk, and is symbolically related to the beginning of a new day and regeneration.  I used photos I'd taken of various ancient Egyptian artifacts as the basis for the design and fired up Inkscape.  Several hours later, I had a DFX file that I could import into Silhouette.  

In the past, I've used painter's tape on eggs to resist the dyes.  I purchased a one inch wide roll, the widest I could find.  I thought I might be pushing the limits of the cutter-plotter's ability to incise the tape without shredding it, but it turned out that that wasn't a problem.  Also, if the tape was too wide, there would have had difficulty applying it evenly to the curved surface of the eggs.

I shrunk down the design, placed a strip of the tape on an older Silhouette mat that had lost some of its stickiness, and set the software for washi paper.  Moments later I had a flawless cut (beginner's luck) of the hpr hieroglyph, and I laughed with a crafter's glee.

While I was at it, I had the cutter-plotter cut out some painter's tape stars.  If I had been thinking, I would have made them duat, or netherworld, stars, (𓇽 ) but they were plain, regular ones.     I also cut out two larger beetles out of 3x5 index cards with a vague notion that they might be able to roll the eggs like their live counterparts will roll dung balls.  

After that, it was a matter of setting up the dye from a kit and dunking eggs.  Neither Mark nor The Child were really into the process, although Mark was interested in natural dyes and tried out onion skins and some Earl Grey tea as dyes.  

The most difficult part was waiting for the eggs, and more importantly, the painter's tape, to dry so that there wouldn't be smudges.  There were some places where the tape had buckled a bit:  worst-case they made some smudged boundaries; best-case there was a kind of marbling effect in some of the stars.  

Next time I will re-work the wing-case design to simplify it and make it less of a T-shape and more of a Y-shape.  It might be possible to stencil a short word or phrase and have it wrapped around the widest part of the egg.  

The eggs were received well (at least on social media) and added to the decor of my folks' Easter table.  

Old Photos: The Fire Egg Shrine

 Several years ago, I used an X-acto knife to cut a hole in an egg.  I filled the shell with isopropyl alcohol.  (Careful, kids, this device is almost 90% pure divorcium.)

 Mark insisted that I not set the house on fire or display this for The Child, so it was in the back part of the yard.  Then I lit it.  Of course I had a camera, so I spent the next two hours (while the summer sun set) photographing it.

 I call this shot the "Virgin Mary" shot.

Easter Craft Tips

Here's a follow-up photo to yesterday's post showing what the eggs look like before I dye them.

I use a craft cutter to cut thin strips or squares of painter's tape.  For the stars, I used a star-punch.  I had the best results holding the tape taut with the sticky side down; this allowed me to lightly touch the punched out tape and lift it out of the punch.  I still had a bunch of tape occasionally stick in the punch, and I'm not sure I'd recommend this technique for intricate shapes.

I've been playing with star shapes long enough to know that the easiest placement starts at one end of the egg and works down toward its widest area.

Once the tape was in place, I used the back of my fingernail to insure there were no lose spots and then dyed the egg.

I air-dried the eggs for about fifteen minutes so that I wouldn't smudge the designs with wet tape.

After they dried, I peeled back the tape.

Inside the Egg

Yesterday I started to make a shrine by cutting out an oval hole from an eggshell.  I'd seen pictures in an art book and I thought it would be fun.  I used a box cutter to score the shell and eventually popped out a window into the shell.  Then I had fried eggs.

Cutting out the window left some rough edges that I managed to sand down a little after washing out the inside of the egg.

So now I had a mini eggshell shrine -- or, more accurately, a pyx or reliquary.  I looked through my jewelry box for things that could fit inside an egg. 

And then the following realization sideswiped me:  I'm building a shrine to something out of a craftily-cut egg shell.  But what do I want to enshrine?  Did I really want to enshrine a Disney pin, faux-medieval coin, or LED earring?

So that leaves me a photo of my family.  Grandma?  No -- I'd had an elaborate arts-and-craft Viking good-bye for her, which would seem to be undone by putting her into an egg.   My family?  No -- a static image of my family would be a shrine to the moment they were frozen by the photo. 

In a sarcastic moment I considered putting a small mirror in so I could sing "Me" to the Isis-Istarte chant; but that would be a shrine to my own Neo-Pagan Irritation. 

I could paint the inside of the egg in shades of darkening blue, like Vigali Hamilton does with rock sculptures.  Or black.  Mark would like that: a shrine to empty nothingness. 

I kind of like that, too; except that I would look into the blackness of the egg as a medatative focus or a tool to scry into the future.  A shrine to meditation seems a little too ironic.  A shrine to the future?  I can see myself dusting a shrine to the future, which sounds like a Laurie Anderson song.

So if you see me, one eyebrow slightly raised, a crinkle in my forehead, looking off-center at a small object, you'll know that I'm pondering its symbolic resonances.  And if it will fit inside the egg.