Hi! My name is So Jeo LeBlond and I thank you for visiting my site. I hope that you are enjoying looking at my work! For those who would like to know a little about me, I live in an old farmhouse in the little rural village of Scotsburn, Nova Scotia, Canada with my husband and two small children. We enjoy sharing our lives with our many pets, including our dogs Molly and Snowy, 2 cats and I have to mention our chickens who are laying us the most beautiful eggs. Here we are surrounded by fields and forests, a bubbling brook and wonderful gardens filled many different kinds of flowers, shrubs and fruit trees.
I attended Dalhousie University in Halifax, NS and completed my BSC, majoring in Marine Biology and minoring in Oceanography. After finishing university I attended a computer programming course at a local college (which is coming in very handy at the moment as I am creating this website!). I never did pursue a career in my chosen field, but instead started a family with my husband and now my full-time job/joy is as a Mom, my part-time job/joy is as an Egg Artist.
I had my very first experience with Pysanky about 20 years ago when one of my three older brothers had given me a simple kit as a Christmas gift. It came with a block of beeswax, a wooden handled copper kistka, a candle and a few packages of dye. Having seen a short vignette of the beautiful Ukrainian Eggs being made on TV and because I just love making things, I was eager to give it a try. I think I only made 3 or 4 VERY ugly eggs and was so discouraged that I put it away.
That is until Spring 2007 when I bought all the supplies for my children, then 2 and 4 years old. Turns out they were too young to be interested in it so I started to dabble with it in the evenings after they went to bed. My old hobbies of knitting, sewing, embroidery and cross-stitch have gone along the wayside due to carpal tunnel so I was looking for something do to that would not aggravate it. I found that working on my eggs allows me time to get away, a little escape from everyday life, a quiet place to just be by myself. I learned the art by researching online and bought every book I could find on Pysanky and with a lot of trial and error (mostly errors in the beginning), I figured out how to make the most beautiful eggs.
I started selling my eggs after only a couple months of working with them. While researching how to make Pysanky online, I came across people selling their eggs on Ebay. I decided to give it a try and now I have a small but loyal following of customers. Living in a very rural area, there is just no market for decorated eggs. All my sales are online and I now ship worldwide. Though I try to have eggs available for the public, I find that most of my time is spent on commission work. I enjoy working directly with my clients, they tell me what they envision on their egg and I do my best to make it happen.
You may notice that my eggs may look different than other traditional designs and I believe that is because I am self taught in the art of Pysanky. Although I often incorporate common symbols and divisions, I don't feel constrained to fall within the boundaries of the traditional designs. In fact, I strive to "think outside the box", to make something wonderful that no one else has seen before. My use of colors also reflects this as I tend not to follow the regular dyeing order from light to dark, but switch back and forth as the design dictates.
My ideas are born from my own life experiences and imagination. I find that nature is one of my greatest inspirations and you will often see flowers, birds and other beautiful elements that are found right from my own backyard. I hope that when looking at my eggs you will feel the intensity of the passion and dedication that I put into my work. My goal is to not only to make beautiful creations, but to also help raise awareness of the art form, to maybe even encourage people to view it not as a Folk Art but more a Fine Art.
To quote a fellow Pysanky artist's comment of my work "Your kind of pysanky is like painting, with wax and dye as your paint, and a kistka as your paintbrush...your egg is your canvas".