An Egg-straordinary Folk-Art Museum: The Amazing Creations of Mildred Vrooman

by Joseph S Heyman

Overview

Frozen in time, we are transported to the 1950’s, a simpler time, when imagination was unobscured by reality to explore dreams and visions. The extraordinary Easter Egg Museum of Schoharie, NY is presented photographically by award-winning photographer and NASA retired rocket scientist, Dr. Joseph Heyman. This is a unique study of the creative folk-art legacy of Mildred Vrooman. In addition, her remarkable life is captured in historical research and preserved documents. Her talent is similar to Grandma Moses – simple depictions of themes – wonderfully brought to the faces of eggs. The eggs are sometimes part of a tableau, dressed elegantly as fashion stars, or as clowns in a circus, or disciples at the Last Supper. This is a unique world treasure!

The Easter Egg Museum was the life-long work and passion of Miss Mildred Vrooman who died in 2012 at age 103. She along with her friend Elizabeth Warner, were inspired to create an Easter Egg tree by the 1951 Caldecott Award children’s book, The Egg Tree, by Katherine Milhouse. The exhibit began with painted and dyed eggs displayed on a few trees outdoors and it continued to expand until it moved indoors to the Mary Beatrice Cushing Memorial Library in 1964.

By 2001, Mildred Vrooman, already a nonagenarian, decided to build a museum on her property for the egg exhibit. She spent a lifetime creating this unique and wondrous collection. While the display began with a few painted eggs it evolved into a wonderland of fanciful vignettes made of eggs. She depicts the Old Stone Fort along with Revolutionary War hero Timothy Murphy. The U.S. presidents up to George W. Bush are each displayed – with heads made of eggs but characteristics that enable easy identification. There is a whole circus with painted eggs including clowns, ticket takers, elephants, and seals. The old lady in the shoe is depicted, along with quite a handful of her children. The scenes include fairy tales, holidays from Easter to Christmas, religious themes including an amazing display of the Last Supper.

Miss Vrooman used small eggs and large eggs, from peahens to ostriches. Each egg was painted and then decorated or clothed. She used lace, beads, shells, fur, yarn, and sequins, anything to embellish her creations. Miss Vrooman was, indeed, a folk artist of egg artery.

The Museum has over 3,000 unique eggs. The eggs are worthy of very careful attention. Each face is distinctive and has wonderful details. No two eggs look exactly alike. In 1995 Miss Vrooman said, “You can’t make ‘em alike. That wouldn’t be right. Each one has to be a separate character.”

Miss Vrooman was creative and she had an artistic eye. Some of the eggs look like Faberge jewel boxes. Others have figures illustrating whole stories within carved eggshells. She also made egg paintings created from colored, crushed eggshells. They are mosaics made entirely of eggshells. A large tree created from wooden dowels holds 600 decorated eggs. Some are painted with Indian heads, others with birds, many have Pennsylvania Dutch decorations, and still others look like pysanka.

Since its inception, thousands of people from all over have visited the Schoharie Easter Egg Exhibit. It is a unique treasure and this legacy book provides an opportunity to share the collection with the world community and new generations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780578457260
Publisher:	Covered Bridge Books
Publication date:	04/05/2019
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	11.00(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.81(d)

About the Author

Dr. Joseph Heyman is a highly successful NASA scientist with 35 US patents and 100s of publications and presentations in his field of aerospace technology. He received the coveted Silver Snoopy Award for contributions returning the Shuttle to flight after the Challenger accident, along with three NASA Medals. He is also the recipient of the Arthur Fleming Award and 4 IR-100 awards for the top technology of the year. He retired from NASA in 2001 as the Chief Technologist for Langley Research Center and started a company that was acquired by Luna Innovations, from which he retired a second time in 2008 as their Chief Scientist. His interest in photography began in high school at Tabor Academy, where he started a photo club. Today he teaches photography at the College of William and Mary's Christopher Wren Association program for continuing education. His photography has been recognized as exceptional with one-man shows in Boston and Williamsburg, a book People of the World Through My Lens, and sales at regional art shows. One of his books, with co-author, Berna Heyman, The Mildred Vrooman Egg Museum, was well received at the 2014 Egg Museum opening.

Table of Contents

Introduction 3

Mildred Vrooman History 4

The Collection 17

Fantasy

Little Red School House 19

The Egg Brothers Circus 22

Magic Forest 27

Wonderland 30

Children’s Stories

There Was An Old Woman 33

Alice in Wonderland 37

Mary Mary, Quite Contrary 40

Nursery Rhymes 44

Cinderella 51

Snow White 55

Wizard of Oz 58

Historical Depictions

American Presidents 61

Old Stone Fort 69

The Dutch Scene 75

Southern Mansion 77

First Thanksgiving 79

Holiday/Religious Themes

The Last Supper 85

Of Such Is The Kingdom 90

Easter Bunnies 94

Bunnyland 102

Easter Symbols 107

Easter Wedding 114

Hark The Herald Angels Sing 119

Christmas Time 125

Santa Land 131

A Delicate Touch

Jeweled Eggs 134

Viennese Ballet 151

Fan Ladies 155

Winter Whimsey 166

Individual Eggs

Ostrich Eggs 173

Egg Trees 190

Individual Eggs 195

Saturday Afternoon At The Park 236

Editorial Reviews

• “it is the only show of its kind in the country.” —Altamont Enterprise and Albany County Post, February 24, 1978.
• “The Easter Egg exhibit is one of the most unusual in the country.” —North Creek News Enterprise, March 29, 1972.
• “Collection is only one of its kind”
• “The hand-painted faces [of the Presidents] all bear strong resemblances to each respective president and all were created by Vrooman.” —Times Union, March 24, 1989.
• A veritable wonderland of little porcelain and plastic figurines sit inside eggshells. All bask in the reflected light of classic American Styrofoan craft panels covered in trinkets, spangles, and gold braids. —Times Union, April 12, 2001.
• “Visitors chide that publicity fails to do justice to what they term an unbelievably lovely and utterly beautiful production.”
• “If you wish to be amazed and delighted by the variety that is possible among eggs, pack young and old into the car and take them to the Easter egg exhibit in … Schoharie. Where else might you see more than 5,000 hand-decorated eggs, every one different from every other, in one collection.” —Observer-Dispatch, April 11, 1987.
• “Whimsical kingdom of eggs.” —Times Union, March 28, 1997.
• “The best American museums are the little ones, the obsessive ones, Mildred Vroman’s Easter Egg Exhibit qualifies, and then some.” —Times Union, April 12, 2001.
• “It's a little eccentric (no pun intended). It's even a little bizarre. But it's also a beautiful testament to Vroman's tenacity and her endless sense of eggy wonder.” —Times Union, April 12, 2001.
• “An eggsotic display of fancy hand-painted eggs … whimsical scenes straight from childhood’s favorite tales are displayed. The exhibit has charmed people of all ages.” —Oneonta Star, March 21, 1967.
  
  

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