Egg Art

Patricia moved to nearby Adams a few years ago from Somerville, MA, where Patricia had curated an annual spring egg show at the Brickbottom Artists Building for eight years running showcasing eggs decorated by her artist friends. This year the itch to resume that tradition here in the Berkshires proved irresistible.

So Patricia has prevailed upon several area artists, myself included, to work whatever artistic wonders strike our fancy upon eggshells (emptied of their yolks, I’m relieved to say) that she has provided.

The results are now on display at the North Adams Public Library at the intersection of East Main and Church Street, where they will be available to library-goers through the month of April. Besides myself, artists with eggs on view are Barbara Armata, Kay Canavino, Sean Riley, Diane Sullivan, Norm Thomas, and folk art collaborators Juliette Wilk-Chafee and her son Ben Chaffee. Pat herself has contributed her "Trypillian-motified eggs" to the mix, and you can bet I’m going to hightail it down Cliff Street to the library at the first opportunity to see what in the world those are!

A few eggs and avian-related artworks from Patricia’s previous exhibits in Somerville are also on display to complement the new ones Patricia has elicited from Berkshire artists. Pier Gustafson, Ram Hannah, Gina Kamentsky, Pauline Lim, Susan Strauss, and V Van Sant are the east-Massachusetts artists responsible for these.

That my own egg is likely to be a true "one-of-a-kind art objet" may be inferred from my response to Patricia’s request that I provide a comment for her press release. "I will probably not make drawing on eggshells my preferred mode of expression," I told her, "since eggs have a habit of wobbling and rolling about this way and that while one is laying down delicate pen lines — a practical drawback not shared by sheets of paper."

I mean no disrespect by this to my contributing goose.