CMU School of Drama


Thursday, April 24, 2014

Artist Piotr Bockenheim Puts Your Easter Egg Decorating to Shame with His Intricately Carved Goose Shells

Colossal: Unless you spent hundreds upon hundreds of hours with a tiny electric drill carving intricate patterns into eggshells the last few months, you may have yet to reach your Easter egg decorating potential. One person who clearly has is artist Piotr Bockenheim who uses a reductive drilling technique to transform goose eggs into slitherting tangles of string and various geometric or floral patterns.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

At first I was like, "What the hell?!?" and then I saw 'goose eggs' and that made life a little better. I was thinking he was using chicken eggs, so I flipped. Goose eggs are a tad bigger and sturdier. This reminds me of the eggshell flutes. They are chicken eggs emptied of the contents through a tiny hole in the bottom and then other holes strategically poked into them. You blow into the hole at the end and then cover the others to create fingerings for the instrument. Like a recorder, it produces other sounds. It usually goes about a half octave. I wonder what the range of pitches you could get out of a goose egg are in comparison... Anyway, this is really cool. Artists are getting more clever about what mediums they are using nowadays. I guess it is because the 'basic' things have all been used before.

Jess Bergson said...

This is pretty amazing, and definitely takes egg decorating to a whole new level. I am interested to know how long it took this artist to carve each of these eggs. I think the lighting in these photos also really adds to the aesthetic. It would be cool to see the photos with different colors of light and from different angles. Although I am totally into this idea, I cannot see this sort of intricacy being implemented in homes for easter egg decorating. I also really can't see this sort of intricacy being applied in a theatrical setting at all.

Carolyn Mazuca said...

I'm super curious in seeing the artist work on these. It would be interesting to see how he sets up his irk place and how concentrated he has to be to work on tees goose eggs. More specifically, I want to know if he uses the naked eye to carefully drill and carve those eggs.
I can't really see this becoming the next easter tradition, but I would like to see what other things this artist has to offer!

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

This is pretty wild. My first instinct is to wonder what would compel someone do this-- but really what compels anyone to do any piece of art? Especially after this year, I recognize that anything can become a medium of artistic expression. I wonder if he has done anything with the eggs aside from posting photos online. Does he have a gallery? Do people purchase these eggs? Do these last or would they decompose? I followed the link the the artists website, but I couldn't find much in the way of information about the artist. Thats a cool thing about Colossal though, they give the opportunity for small artists to receive some more exposure for their unusual work.

Keith Kelly said...

Egg carving and decorating is extremely complicated and requires the deepest level of focus and determination to complete. Even getting an even color coating during easter is difficult for most people, but carving is a whole over story. The fact that this is all hand done and the pictures show practically no flaws is unbelievable. I don't know how he has so much patients for this art from. I wonder how many he typically breaks before he gets one to his liking. I also wonder how much time it takes him to carve a single egg and how much he sells them for. They must be extremely expensive if he expects to make any money off of them. I could see a museum purchasing them, but not for personal possession. Anyone who is interested can message him or add him on Facebook.

Akiva said...

This is very impressive. The images are clearly amazing to look at, but I found the short paragraph at the end the most interesting. The processes of making these must have been crazy. I wonder how often he breaks the eggs he is working on. I would love to have a tiny electric drill, it must be so cute. A time lapse of him making these would be really enjoyable to watch. As much as I like the look of these eggs I don't think I understand what they mean or why they need to exist from an artistic point of view. Often I see really cool art on the internet, but it doesn't mean anything to me, it just looks nice.