"Like most artists, my creative journey began at an early age. I used to sleepwalk as a kid. When I was about five I remember awakening to a rainbow of crayons scattered across the living room floor. Beneath my elbow was a stack of vivid drawings I'd created while asleep.
"Since I lifted that first crayon, storytelling and language - the language of birds, the language of the earth, and the silent language we humans use to interact with our inner and outer landscapes, have fed my art. Images from dreams, observations, and quirky musings push their way into my sketchbooks to this day."
Cathee vanRossem-St.Clair
Some artists use canvas, others paper, but Cathee vanRossem-St. Clair paints on eggshells. St. Clair's painted eggs have earned national recognition and are prized by collectors throughout the world. In 2002 she was invited to attend a reception with the First Lady at the White House after being asked, as one of eight California artists, to create a work of art for the White House Christmas tree. Her egg, The California Thrasher, is now in the National Archives.
Why an egg? Why not paint on a flat surface? This question has followed St. Clair for over 30 years. "Nothing can match the mystery of the egg," she says. "For centuries, this small, protective shell has carried deep significance. It is a universal symbol of life, creation, rebirth, good fortune, transformation, and enlightenment. To hold an egg in your hands is like holding a miniature world - a world no more fragile than the one we live in - no more fragile than we are."
St. Clair studied art and philosophy at San Jose State University and explored the works of great Renaissance painters and philosophers while living in Italy. She researches her subjects extensively. "Each egg I paint tells a story that blends, flows and connects in ways that simply aren't possible on a flat canvas." One story carries you around a carousel of endangered animals. Another reveals the intricacies of a Russian fairytale.
For an artist, painting on eggshells presents a unique challenge. "It's a humbling experience. It requires an altered awareness of composition, perspective, and proportion. You have to constantly adjust images so they don't distort on the curved surface. You have to coax scenes to wrap and meet on the other side. You have to support the center of interest with a background that often becomes the foreground when you turn the egg. In order to make believable impressions, you find yourself becoming a trickster as well as an artist," explains St. Clair.
In the beginning, St. Clair didn't take egg painting seriously. "It was, I thought, a whim." She initially worked with markers and pen and ink, employing a special technique she invented and now teaches to elementary school children in her Truckee/Tahoe Egg Painting Workshops. Soon, however, she found acrylics to be her most reliable medium. "Acrylics are fast-drying and more stable than watercolors and markers. When applied properly, they can mimic the quality of oils and help strengthen the shell."
Nearly 20 years ago, St. Clair stumbled upon an unlikely student for her exquisitely delicate and fragile art - a four-year-old. St Clair remembers, "A friend brought her son to my studio for a visit. He begged me to show him how to paint eggs. I put a pillow in his lap and absent-mindedly handed him a dozen hollow chicken eggs. He broke every one. After cleaning up the pieces together, I gave him a single egg. He squeezed it like a golf ball. He poked his pencil clear through the following egg and dropped the next two. Just when I was about to give up on him, he carefully took an egg in his hands, looked at it like he'd never seen such a thing before in his life, and slowly took a breath. Then he successfully painted it with markers. He illustrated a dozen eggs that day. After he went home, I realized my little friend at first had no idea eggshells were fragile. Once he became aware of this, he instinctively knew how to handle them with care."
About this same time, Terry Yagura, director of Arts For The Schools, a North Tahoe non-profit organization, viewed St. Clair's work in a gallery and asked her to create an egg painting workshop for elementary school-children. This idea has since hatched into an immensely successful program, which is currently celebrating its 17th year. During the classes, St. Clair demonstrates how these fragile canvases symbolize the fragility of every natural thing on earth. She takes it one step further and pairs the idea of fragility with caring. Third- and fourth-graders learn to focus for up to two hours at a time for several weeks while they learn how to paint a masterpiece on an empty chicken egg. St. Clair's school program took flight so quickly and successfully that it received accolades from the California Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.
The eggs St. Clair and her students work with are infertile, supplied by domestic breeders from all over the country. They range from huge ostrich eggs to miniscule golden-breasted finch eggs and include all sizes in between. St. Clair also paints on flat surfaces, often incorporating eggshells in the themes. In her newest works she actually cuts openings into two-dimensional canvases and hangs painted eggs inside them, adding a new dimension to her narrative art. "Like each of us, eggs are fragile yet strong, full of life, and bursting with stories to tell."
Article by Julie Young, Sierra Heritage, November/December 2006
For an interview with the artist in the March, 2008 issue of Moonshine Ink, click on the link below:
