April 2009
The Creative Side of Eggs
by Karen Boehler
Just minutes southeast of the small community, Kelly Ghost Town was once a booming mining town of 3,000 residents, and today is open as a tourist attraction. Magdalena itself boasts numerous historic buildings, unlimited outdoor recreation in the Cibola National Forest and is the closest town to the Very Large Array, a National Radio Astronomy Observatory on the Plains of San Agustin that was a featured player in the film "Contact" and is open daily for visitors.
All that still hasn't been enough to bring people to the town of 1,200 at the foot of South Baldy Peak, so in the past few years, residents of Magdalena have been promoting the village as a growing arts and crafts community. Yvonne Magener is one of those residents. Once a year, she promotes a unique art show she describes as "a lot of fun." Her show is all about eggs.
The South African native said it was tradition in her mother's family to decorate eggs. "In Germany, one always tends to dye eggs at Easter, and we just did it every year. Then we started decorating ostrich eggs because they were readily available in South Africa, and that's how it started. We just started making more elaborate eggs every year," she says.
Although the village of Magdalena has a long and storied history, today it's a place many people may pass right through without taking a second look. Highway 60, which is Magdalena's main street, parallels the historic "Stock Driveway," which covered 120 miles through New Mexico and Arizona from 1885 through 1916, with cowboys driving cattle and sheep to the railroad spur line that ended at "Trail's End," Magdalena.
Before eggs became a part of her artistic life, both she and her mother, Ilse, made their living as artists selling decorated tile. Even her everyday art she describes as "very different from the normal, run-of-the-mill stuff." She calls it a raised-relief technique, using a lot of gold leaf that some describe as Byzantine. "It's something my mother developed," Yvonne says. Today, that art is sold in Magdalena and at galleries in New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona.
Eleven years ago, when the mother and daughter moved to Magdalena, the idea of eggs as art came about. That move wasn't planned. The pair were living in Spain and Ilse decided she wanted to move somewhere else. She considered Santa Fe, "but when she actually got there, she was quite put out. It wasn't exactly what she thought it was," Yvonne says. So they drove through the state, and destiny apparently was in the stars.
"It was definitely fate, because we looked at a lot of different places and we just ended up here," Yvonne says. "She found a very beautiful house in Magdalena." Initially, Yvonne wasn't sure about the town. "At the beginning, I just came here to help mother with her move, and I thought, ‘Why on Earth here?' Because 11, 12 years ago, it was really the boonies."
However, it began to grow on her, and now, she says, "I'm quite happy. I think it's great. I do like it now. One actually has to wait to cross the road any more. Before, one could just drive onto the highway. But now you've got to wait for five or eight cars. It is getting fuller."
Whether waiting for a few cars to pass is most people's idea of "full," it was definitely even more remote several years ago. So when mother and daughter first moved to the small Socorro County community, Yvonne knew she needed to come up with an idea to get people to visit the area's artists. And that's where the eggs came in. "Because we're out in the boonies, you have to have something different to attract people, and the shows have been very well visited," she says.
For the first seven years the pair were in Magdalena, they drew on their tradition of decorating eggs and held an egg show the weekends surrounding Easter. Then, three years ago, they decided to open the show to other artists, professional and otherwise, and Yvonne says it was a hit. "I had 37 different artists last year," she says. "It's a very varied and very different kind of show. It's just amazing what people come up with."
Some eggs are painted, some embroidered, some dyed—imagination is the limit, Yvonne says.
Local artist Aleta Gray has shown beaded eggs. "She has some incredible work on her eggs, because it's very painstaking doing beading on the eggs," Yvonne says. Other artists who patiently bead eggs include Arley Berryhill and Kellylynn Hahn.
Some eggs are painted, some embroidered, some dyed—imagination is the limit, Yvonne says. She's had hummingbird eggs in a nest on display, as well as decorated emu, goose, ostrich, chicken, and quail eggs.
And although initially the idea was to use only real eggs, "some people broke their eggs and it was devastating once you've worked on it for so long and something breaks. So, it can be any kind of egg, as long as it's egg shaped." They've shown wooden, stone and glass eggs as well as the real thing. The only requirement, Yvonne says, is that the art be "egg related."
Artists have come from as near as next door and as far away as Montana and Michigan. "Then of course, we have children who have participated and have been very active in this," she says. Her youngest exhibitor was 10 months old. "Her egg looked beautiful," Yvonne says. "Her mother put paint on the table, and she (the baby) just touched it, and then touched the egg, and it looked great."
Yvonne is working with students in both the Magdalena and Alamo Navajo schools to get involved in the show. Several years ago, she taught an egg decorating class at the Alamo Navajo Reservation "which was really fun," she says. She also offers yearly workshops, to anyone interested in learning how to decorate eggs.
This year's egg show is at the Bear Mountain Coffee House and Gallery, 902 W. First Street, Highway 60, in Magdalena on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays the first three weeks in April. Also, by appointment on weekdays.
Anyone is welcome to exhibit, and the art can be sold, traded or simply exhibited, depending on the artist's choice.
Yvonne encourages visitors to make a day or weekend of it, either by visiting the other galleries in Magdalena—most are open during the weekend—and/or traveling to nearby sites such as El Camino Real Heritage Center, the Very Large Array or Bosque del Apache.
"Just come. It's a wonderful trip," she says. "And think about painting an egg."
Eggs-traordinary Folklore
While today, decorated eggs are mainly connected with Easter and an egg-delivering bunny, Yvonne Magener, an artist who hosts an annual egg show in Magdalena, says their significance as a sign of spring goes much further back in history.
"In pagan times, they used eggs as a symbol of rebirth," says Magener, who's been researching egg history since she began showing them as art.
Russians have a tradition of decorating eggs—with Faberge eggs being the most well-known Russian egg art—as do the Roumanians, who embroider eggs, creating intricate lace work around eggs, while Ukrainians boil eggs then batik them.
In Chinese tradition, red eggs have long been used as part of a child's naming ceremony. Eggs were considered a delicacy in traditional China and were usually reserved for special occasions or guests.
One month after a child is born, hard-boiled eggs symbolizing fertility are dyed red for good luck and given to family, friends and relatives who had honored the child's birth. That tradition continues today.
Magener also discovered another red egg connection that seemed quite appropriate considering the South African artist now resides in Magdalena.
The town is named after Mary Magdalene, who, in Christian mythology, was the first to discover Jesus had risen from the dead.
Magdalene went around the world to spread the happy news, eventually reaching Rome and Emperor Tiberius Caesar's palace. According to tradition, everyone visiting the Emperor was supposed to bring a gift.
Magdalene brought an egg, greeting Tiberius by saying, "Christ has risen from the dead!"
According to the story, the Emperor couldn't believe what he heard and responded, "How could anyone ever rise from the dead?! It is as impossible as that white egg to turn red right now." While Tiberius was talking, the egg in Mary Magdalene's hands started changing its color until it finally became bright red.
This is why red eggs have been exchanged at Easter for centuries in the Byzantine East. The Greeks also have a strong tradition in dying eggs red, and saying "Christos Anesti" (Christ is risen).
Magener's research on imagery of Mary Magdalene holding an egg, sometimes red, sometimes white, now includes 18 different images. She encourages various artists to consider creating an image of Mary Magdalene with an egg.
Then, of course, at the other end of the serious spectrum of eggs as symbols, Magener poses the perennial question: "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" In Magdalena, it's clearly the egg.
The 2009 Egg Show
April 3-5 • April 10-12 • April 17-19
Bear Mountain Gallery
902 W. First Street, Highway 60 Magdalena
575-854-3310
www.bearmountaincoffeehouse.com
Contact Yvonne Magener for further details
575-854-2151
info@theeggplace.com
www.theeggplace.com
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