Brooksby	UPDATED: Thursday, May 01, 2008
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Egg artist rolls talent into community

Posted on Thursday, May 01, 2008

By Setarreh Massihzadegan
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

Easter has come and gone,but Christina Cooper does her egg decorating year-round. Brooksby’s resident egg artist turns ostrich, rhea, goose, and emu eggs, among others, into elaborately decorated scenes made with Swarovski Austrian crystals and tiny trinkets. Her current collection of 62 eggs drew attention recently while on display at Brooksby, and it prompted more admirers to become involved in the craft.

Over the past ten years (six of them at Brooksby), Cooper has created eggs for all occasions. From an ostrich egg-turned-carriage to Cooper’s personal favorite—a tiny sparkling snow scene with penguins—each egg reveals a different theme.

“I’m working on them all the time,” says Cooper, who was recently profiled in the Boston Herald for her talent. “It’s my passion right now.”

New craft uncovered
A talented quilter and embroiderer, Cooper was on the board of directors of the Wakefi eld Arts and Crafts Society when she first happened upon egg art. The society was planning a class taught by Faberge-style egg artist Sophie Chetwynd. When not enough people signed up, someone asked Cooper if she wanted to join.

“I thought of Easter eggs and said I wasn’t really interested,” Cooper recalls. But it wasn’t long before she changed her mind. “When I went and saw Sophie’s eggs, I got hooked.” Cooper now attends Chetwynd’s class every Tuesday, where she gets the sterilized eggs and most of her design ideas. She works on her eggs in the second bedroom of her Brooksby apartment home.

“I took a second bedroom just so I would have room for my crafts,” Cooper says.

Sharing the art
Cooper has shared egg art with Brooksby through a number of workshops she and Chetwynd have held on campus. Her recent display seemed an effective advertisement for her workshop, as passersby couldn’t help but inquire about the craft.

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“I’m amazed,” says Helen November, who was passing the display on her way to the Greentree Café down the hall. “I admire that every time I go by. When I saw this I thought, ‘This is the best [display],’” November adds. By the time her conversation with Cooper was over, November had decided to join the next workshop.

Nine eggs made by another Brooksby resident and talented craftswoman, Jodi Jacobus, were also on display. Jacobus attended one of Chetwynd’s workshops at Brooksby before she, too, began taking the Tuesday class and amassing her own egg collection.

A few of Cooper’s latest eggs were on display last month in the annual Wakefield Arts and Crafts Society exhibit.

Giving the gift
With her many admirers, it’s no wonder Cooper has given away or sold at least as many eggs as she has made. Though she doesn’t have the time or desire to go into business full-time, she has filled special orders for people who wanted to give her eggs as gifts.

Since she began making them, Cooper has given eggs to her family members for every occasion from Christmas to weddings. At one point she began to think it was too much. “I said, ‘I don’t know if I’ll keep making eggs, because I think you’re all getting tired [of them],’” Cooper recalls. She was answered with a chorus of “No, no, no!”