Artists and their Easter eggs

Easter’s just another excuse to make art.

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Ingrid Goff-Maidoff has always loved doodling. When other kids were "up to all kinds of mischief" in college, she painted Easter eggs. "It was the best way I knew," she told The Times, "to have a very cosmic time." She made these several years ago with permanent pen. Ms. Goff-Maidoff shows her work at Night Heron Gallery in Vineyard Haven, which opened April 4. — Picasa

It’s no surprise that given a blank slate, an artist will fill it, or find a way to make something remarkable.

Hard boiled eggs turn out to be no different. We asked some artists we know to share past Easter egg creations. We got emails of etchings and photos of egg-shaped earrings; when we got Traeger di Pietro’s very interesting hand-drawn egg, we envisioned him opening our email query, walking to the refrigerator, and — Sharpie in hand — drawing his vision.

Claudia Lee, owner of the eponymous jewelry stores, shared photos of the Easter eggs created by her late husband, the beloved Island artist Richard Lee. Mr. Lee made the eggs pictured here just months before his death, for the 2012 Easter Egg hunt that Elise LeBovit holds each year at the Duck Inn in Aquinnah. “They’re hard boiled eggs,” Ms. Lee told the Times recently. “All dyed with gold leaf and copper and silver leaf.” Each year, Mr. Lee decorated 20-30 eggs, slowly, over a week’s time. The morning of the event, Mr. Lee and their son Hudson hid the eggs in the Ms. Lebovit’s field.

“He just loved doing it. They were gorgeous! I hated to part with them,” Claudia Lee said. “Each year, I managed to get a few the kids missed. Over time, I’d keep out six or eight each Easter.”

In 2013, Claudia Lee decided to keep up the tradition, and decorate the eggs herself. “It took me forever,” she said. “I had to ask my son to help. I’m not as good with the gold leaf.” The children, she said,  didn’t seem to notice the difference between the Mr. and Mrs. Lee’s eggs.

“I’ll be doing it again this year,” Ms. Lee told us. Her son is away, she said, so she’ll invite friends over to help.