TEMPLE TERRACE \u2014 Abby Church was just 8 years old when she experienced her first Temple Terrace Arts & Craft Festival.<\/p>\n
It was held at Riverhills Park. Her mother took her, and they hunted down a picture of a monkey that Abby had drawn with pastels as a school project at Lewis Elementary.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just remember being so excited to see it up there with all the other artwork,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
That feeling, and a knack for artistry since she could first hold a crayon, keeps bringing Church back.<\/p>\n
At this weekend\u2019s 52nd annual Temple Terrace Arts & Crafts Festival at Woodmont Park, Abby will be among the more than 100 artists and vendors at the festival, which runs Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 8-9, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day.<\/p>\n
Saturday night, a concert will cap that day\u2019s festivities, beginning at 6:30 p.m.<\/p>\n
Last year, Abby, now 22, placed for the first time in the fine art competition, finishing second.<\/p>\n
This year, she will once again be entered, but will also be participating as a vendor, selling her wares from Batsnail, an online business she started when she was 18.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis festival ranks really high for me, I always look forward to it,\u201d she said. \u201cIt has a cozy, small town feel. It keeps getting bigger, but it never loses that charm. It just feels like family to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Church\u2019s actual family is steeped in artistic ability and creativity, and her parents fed their daughter\u2019s appetite for it with every supply she needed as a child. She would draw and sketch in notebooks, schoolbooks and anything else she could find to draw on.<\/p>\n
A year after her pastel monkey hung at the festival, Church won a contest for a shirt design at Lewis Elementary. The design was used on a pride T-shirt that was sold at the school.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose two things got me excited to do more things,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
After Lewis, she was homeschooled and grew into a self-taught artist, experimenting with a wide variety of mediums and techniques. Illustration and graphite portraits became her favorite.<\/p>\n
In 2020, while studying in Ukraine, she discovered Ukrainian easter eggs, or pysanky.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hadn’t really heard of them,\u201d she recalled, although she knew some members of her family, like her great grandfather, had grown in up Ukraine before coming to the U.S. at the age of 14.<\/p>\n
Her great aunt, a teacher, offered to show her how to make them. She taught Church and her siblings the fine art of delicately decorating the eggs. Church was 17 and immediately hooked.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe saw how much I loved it, and sent me home with a ton of supplies,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Although many assume the eggs are simply painted, Church explains that it is much more involved than that. The eggs are first drained and dried. Designs are drawn on with beeswax using a tool called a kistka, then dipped in dyes \u2014 a wax-resist method, in which the pattern drawn is expected to resist the dye.<\/p>\n
That process is repeated, from lighter colors to darker colors, until eventually, the wax has melted off or been wiped away.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it’s actually not paint at all, it\u2019s ancient folk art,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Eggs can take anywhere from 10 minutes to several weeks to finish. They are often displayed on small stands or serve as ornaments for Christmas and other holidays.<\/p>\n
Church does customized eggs and even did a goose egg for one client. Some favorite designs she has come up with are hard to let go.<\/p>\n
The fact that it is part of her heritage makes it a more meaningful and spiritual process.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s culturally significant to Ukraine \u2014 it\u2019s a symbol of hope, especially right now with everything that\u2019s going on,\u201d she said. \u201cIt’s also like it’s a part of my family, even though I didn\u2019t know them. It just feels like a special connection I have to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Church donates a portion of her sales from the eggs to help Ukrainian children.<\/p>\n
It is also a central part of her side business. When Church graduated high school, she considered art school, but instead decided to start Batsnail, where she sells her work.<\/p>\n
A nickname her brother gave her when she was younger, Batsnail helps fulfill Church\u2019s entrepreneurial spirit.<\/p>\n
Ironically, she had already designed her logo years earlier. It was her signature on cards she made for friends and family when she was younger.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a big thing to get as card from me, and they were all kind of rooting for me to do something with it,\u201d she said. \u201cI had no idea it would become a business at that point.\u201d<\/p>\n
She even sold T-shirts with her logo on it to raise the money for her entry fee into the Temple Terrace arts fest in 2021, the same year she started her business.<\/p>\n