Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Volodymyr

…Artist JANE POLLACK of Norwalk, Conn., has transformed an artistic hobby into a profitable business that earns her $75,000 a year by decorating eggs with American quilt patterns. A former elementary school art teacher, she bases her art on the ancient wax-and-dye technique of Ukrainian egg decorating, which she learned from a colleague in the 1970s. Interviewed last August by Annika Pergament during a CBS news program, she described how she “revived and revitalized” the Ukrainian art, tuning plain eggs into intricately decorated eggs and eggshells into delicate earrings and brooches (one set of earrings and brooch features a Ukrainian pysanka design centered with a deer). Ms. Pollack has created specially decorated eggs for President and Mrs. Roland Reagan and for the Clintons, and has received national exposure in Country Living and other magazines, as well as in museum gift shops and on television. After studying marketing, she created a website (jane@janepollack.com) and identified and added a customer base. Her book “Decorating Eggs: Exquisite Designs With Wax and Dye” (1996) is considered the definitive work on this new art form, and she has now added “motivational speaker” to her resumé. Depending on the intricacy of the pattern and other factors, quilt- decorated eggs and traditional Ukrainian pysanky are priced from $30 to $350 (complete with stand and glass dome) and jewelry from $39 to $89. Visitors to Ms Pollack’s website are referred to Surma: The Ukrainian Shop, for information about ordering Ukrainian Easter egg supplies.

DR. ELLEN REEDER, deputy director for art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, is an engaging speaker with an infectious laugh who can put any audience at ease. But when she talks about her latest finished project — the Scythian artifacts exhibit from Ukraine currently touring several museums in North America — her voice and manner exude extra excitement and pleasure. She’s simply wild about Ukraine, its natural and man-made wonders and its archaeological treasures. Addressing a packed auditorium at the Ukrainian Institute of America in October while slides of Ukraine were being presented, Dr. Reeder spoke enthusiastically about her work as curator of the “Gold of the Nomads” exhibition. While preparing the exhibit, she took many trips to Ukraine to visit its museums and some of the 40,000 lavishly provisioned burial mounds (kurhany) left behind by the Scythians. She also visited historical sites like the Taras Shevchenko Museum in Kaniv, the Urals where Shevchenko was exiled, the golden-domed churches of Kyiv, the city of Pereiaslav — which she considers “great potential for tourism in Ukraine” and viewed some of the country’s 3,000 rivers and tributaries and “land that stretches out forever.”

Tenor BOHDAN SIKORA, from the Lviv Opera, and soprano LYDIA BYCHKOVA, a principal soloist with the Kyiv Opera, led the impromptu singing of Ukrainian carols at a parish luncheon that followed the Christmas liturgy at St. Vladimir’s Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral on January 7. Both are members of St. Vladimir’s Choir. Mr. Sikora, a graduate of both the Pedagogical College in Lviv and the Lviv Conservatory and a 1988 laureate of the Mykola Lysenko Contest for young opera singers, studied church conducting and cantoring in Lviv. He has appeared in principal tenor roles at the Lviv Opera Studio and has concertized and toured with several ensembles from Ukraine, including the Song and Dance Military Ensemble, the Homin Choir, the Lviv Choir of the Credo Polytechnic Institute and the Ostap Stakhiv Folklore Theater. Ms. Bychkova, who also sings in the Dumka Chorus of New York, is scheduled to give a recital at the Ukrainian Institute of America on February 11, sponsored by the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The joint collaboration of the YARA ARTS GROUP, artists from Ukraine and the Gogol Bordello band headed by Eugene Hutz brought an unusual and highly entertaining work to the LaMama Experimental Theatre in December. Yara group’s 10th theater piece, “Song Tree,” featured traditional polyphonic Ukrainian female singing and the explosive Ukrainian ethno-avant-garde music of the Gogol Bordello band. Though the storyline was fairly simple, featuring characters from ancient “Malanka” and “Koza” rituals who descend on a woman buried in work and science, the overall effect of multilingual songs, dances, music, costumes and stage setting created a stunning original work that had the audience spellbound. Outstanding work was contributed by Ukrainian artists Maryana Sadovska and Yaryna Turianska, who were joined last summer by Yara director Virlana Tkacz and video director Andrea Odezynska in recording pre-Christmas carols and winter songs in the villages of Poltava and the Carpathians. The gypsy singer known only as Piroshka created a tumult of color and sound in her appearances with the band. The multilingual piece, repeated in matinees and evening performances during its three-day run, was directed by Ms. Tkacz, with music by Ms. Sadovska, Ms. Turianska and Mr. Hutz. Yara artists included Zabryna Guevara, Akiko Hiroshima, Jina Oh and Meredith Wright, while the band utilized the talents of Mr. Hutz, Sergey Ryabtsev and Alexander Kosachkoff.

Helen Smindak’s e-mail address is HaliaSmindak@aol.com.