Egg Painting is a tradition found in many lands, and is generally associated with Easter- but there is perhaps no greater historical example than the Iranian tradition of painting eggs to celebrate Norwuz, the traditional Persian New Year, coinciding with the arrival of Spring.
That’s visual artist Saba Zamani, who led a workshop on the egg-painting ritual Saturday at the Arnprior and District Museum.
Zoroastrianism is one of the world’s original monotheistic religions, and is said to be the faith of the biblical Three Wise Men.
Today the majority of Zoroastrians are located in Mumbai, India, having been pressured to leave their homeland following the Islamic conquest beginning in the 7th Century of the Common Era. There are an estimated 125 thousand practitioners worldwide- with about 7,000 living in Canada.
Easter Eggs, as we know them, are a spin-off of Christian tradition, likely borrowed from ancient Iranian origins.
The idea to make and paint the larger-size eggs was Saba’s own.
Participants from Saturday’s Museum workshop were given the opportunity to add to the three larger replica eggs- or paint actual eggs at their pleasure.
As a museum employee, Zamani was given wide latitude to not only design the workshop, but also come up with the campaign to promote it, which saw a large papier-mache egg migrate to various shop windows in Town.
She even adapted the paints for indoor work, versus the acrylic medium preferred by Mother Nature.
The Iranian Egg-Painting workshop was the perfect compliment to Saturday morning’s Easter Egg Hunt, and the Bunny Run Race. Participants sure had fun with the tempera paints in replicating the tradition at workshop tables, or adding strokes of their own to the larger papier mache eggs that Saba had constructed.
By Rick Stow
