Ballwin artist's Ukrainian Easter eggs are a hit

[Sherman A1]

Katherine Alexander makes Ukrainian Easter eggs — and that’s earned her not only a huge following on TikTok, but also helped her raise more than $6,000 to help Ukraine.

But Alexander had neither thing in mind when she began getting serious about the art form. She’d learned how to make what’s called pysanky from her Polish mother, then put it behind her to focus on her career as a music educator. She spent nearly a decade as orchestra director for the Webster Groves School District.

Then, after leaving her job to take care of her children, she found herself with too much energy in the evenings. Returning to pysanky gave her something to do with her hands — and an outlet for her creative energy.

“About five years ago, that's when I started making them almost compulsively every night,” she recalled on Wednesday’s St. Louis on the Air. “I had to get to 8 o'clock when the boys were tucked in and I could work on this art.”

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2022-04-18/ballwin-artists-ukrainian-easter-eggs-are-a-hit