There’s something special about an egg. When you hold one in your hand, the smooth shell and never ending curves bring up thoughts about the preciousness and fragility of life.
Truckee-based artist Cathee van Rossem St. Clair has used eggs as her canvas for many decades, and has won many awards for these miniature paintings. One of her painted eggs is in the permanent collection at the White House. As an artist in residence for Arts in the Schools, Cathee has taught thousands of school children about the biology of eggs and given each of them the opportunity to express their creativity on the surface of an egg. Recently I visited Cathee at her cozy home, which holds her art studio. We talked at length about the artistic process and her latest creative endeavors.
Moonshine Ink: What have you been doing recently?
CS: Painting and writing mostly. It was nice to have a week of vacation from teaching [during Ski/Skate week], and I really got back into the studio. Some nights I’ve been up until 5 a.m. I’d find myself getting tired around 3 a.m., and then I’d get one more final push.
MI: Were you born with the creative gene?
CS: (Laughs) Maybe that’s it. Sometimes I wish I could be a normal person.
MI: What have you been painting and writing?
CS: I’ve been working on some commission work, which is always both a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because it is fun, and it’s a curse because I always worry if I’m doing the right thing. Some of my best work comes out of commissions because I do things I wouldn’t normally do and it pushes me. I do a lot of research and I learn so much from that. It’s like the process of creating art in general: there is passion and anticipation, but after that comes the dread and fear. I ask myself, ‘Can I do this?’ All of my paintings go through an awkward stage, and my demons arise demanding, ‘Who do you think you are?’ I really have no clue what I am doing.
MI: So what happens next?
CS: I think the main thing is to keep going. I’ll stop and do something else like household chores or take a walk, and then something gets me back in there. It’s like the painting has me on a leash and pulls me back.
MI: How do you break through the procrastination phase?
CS: Sometimes the artwork sits for a long time before I get it resolved. Deadlines help me, even though I dread them. Eventually something happens, like I’m gone and I don’t exist any more. It’s like the painting takes over, and those are the times I can’t stop. It feels like a dream state. It’s probably the like the ‘zone’ an athlete goes into.
MI: How do you know when a painting is finished?
CS: Actually, I don’t. Sometimes my husband says, ‘Stop! Don’t touch it, it’s perfect.’ When I’m working on two-dimensional pieces, stopping early is essential. When I’m painting eggs, it’s so different.
MI: How did you get into painting eggs?
CS: The short story is I wanted to paint something for my mother’s birthday, I opened the refrigerator door, and there was an egg, ta-da! I’ve told this story many times before, but it isn’t quite that simple. It started when I was in college, living communally with other students in Italy. We would gather eggs from the chickens and hide them from each other in the haystacks, just so we could hope we’d have our own eggs for breakfast. The eggs were very precious to us. I found myself writing about eggs in my journals, writing poems about them, and to me they represented nourishment. Then I got into the shape. Somebody back there told me about the Renaissance artists who would paint eggs, and I thought that meant they would paint still life egg images. But no, they would paint on the surface of the egg itself, to get a feel for curvature and distortion, perspective and proportion, like the way mirrors were curved. So, that’s why when I opened the refrigerator, the egg jumped out at me. It was a symbol of mother and daughter. By the way, my mother loved it.
MI: And that’s how a career was born?
CS: It was just so much fun. It was 1974, and I painted another, and then another… Soon I had a show at a gallery. I was making a living from this. The whole metaphor of calmness and fragility came out. I’m not the calmest person in the world, but when I paint an egg I slow down and this allows me to focus. The quality of that act of focusing has caused me to become more aware of the world around me, the nuances, the little things.
MI: How do you feel about being called ‘the Egg Lady’?
CS: (laughs) Well, I’m not the only egg lady in the world. Honestly, I don’t mind it. I think it started at school when I began teaching the kids. When it comes from a child, being called the egg lady can be very endearing. Eggs are intimate, never endings, connecting, global, feminine…. Holding an egg is an intimate experience. Psychologically, it’s in focus, and the egg draws you inward. I have a tendency to look at the small things.
MI: Is there a specific format to your teaching for Arts for the Schools?
CS: Each class is a three-week program, concluding with a poetry reading and presentation. I developed the program as a template: it’s part biology, where we learn about all kinds of eggs and birds. I incorporate life lessons in the teaching of an object that is a symbol of life. I do story telling too, to spark their imaginations, and I give them drawing lessons. They create portfolios, and then they plan their masterpiece egg. From this they get to experience the contrast of working on a flat surface versus a round object. Their drawing can be anything that they want it to be, so they get to tell their own story. And then they write a poem to accompany it. Basically, I share what I love with them.
MI: Anything else you’d like to tell us?
CS: Before you leave I’m going to have you hold an egg. (Cathee pulls out canisters, which hold many varieties of eggs.) I have so much respect for birds and nature. There’s something about eggs. It links us to where we come from. (Cathee hands me a dinosaur egg.) What does it feel like to hold something between 70 and 150 millions of years old in your hands? It connects us to what we all have in common. It takes imagination to comprehend it. This is older than everything around us. This is where we come from. The dinosaurs are sort of like us. We are the species with the biggest footprint on the earth right now. It shows us how temporary we are.
MI: It is profound to hold this egg, and it evokes a feeling beyond words. Thank you.
-For information about Cathee Van Rossem St. Clair and her artwork, visit catheestclair.com
