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Eggcitement Building For Eggceptional Auction

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 31, 2006
CONTACT: Mary Layton
802-785-2077 (w)
802-649-1973 (h)
open.fields.school@valley.net

NOTE: We can provide digital photographs, on light or dark backgrounds, of any of the eggs on our website. Contact Nellie Pennington (nelliep@sover.net or 802-765-4227) for more information.

How much would you pay for an egg? Ten cents? A quarter? Well, how about $500? Or even $1000? It sounds crazy, until you realize the eggs are as big as your fist, and painted and signed by talented and award-winning artists. There’s a musical carousel, complete with tiny horses inside the egg. There are eggs wrapped in beads, fabric, and paper. There are not-so-traditional pysanky eggs, and painted eggs in every conceivable style. This artwork is eggstraordinary, eggcentric, and every one of these eggs is, well, eggceptional!

These eggs aren’t in your local supermarket, of course. They’re on sale at Open Fields School's Sixth Great Goose Egg Auction, to be held Saturday, May 13, 2006 at the Hanover Inn’s Hayward Lounge in Hanover, New Hampshire. The public viewing runs from 9:00 to 11:00 AM. Doors will open again at 1:00 PM and the bidding begins at 1:30 PM.

Many of the artists are children’s book illustrators, including Emily Arnold McCully (Caldecott Medal for Mirette on the High Wire), who contributed a chubby Baby In Bath Water, and Grace Lin, whose Umbrella Flowers will have you dancing in no time. A few non-goose eggs have crept in: recent Caldecott Medallist Eric Rohmann’s luminous Fox on a Hill graces an emu egg and Ed Young (Caldecott Winner for Lon Po Po) has donated a Menagerieof animal studies on chicken eggs.

This year’s auction honors the late Trina Schart Hyman, founder of the event, who was a renowned children's book illustrator, a devoted supporter of Open Fields School, and children’s advocate. A number of eggs contain tributes to her. Susan Jeffers (Caldecott Honor for Brother Eagle, Sister Sky) has contributed an angel, with a quote from e.e.cummings. D.B Johnson’s Henry Meets Trina Hyman on the Path has his award-winning bear Henry greeting Trina, in full “Little Red” cape. Ashley Bryan’s colorful collage, O Freedom, to Trina, soars with her spirit - and his.

Artists who take a more sculptural approach to egg decoration come as far away as Sweden. Sven Nordqvist’s Fatal Disguise has an egg in a football mask - awaiting the kickoff. Michael and Nora Burrows’ offering is Eggcentricity, an adaptation of an orrery (solar system model) using ostrich, goose and quail eggs, with a gorgeous turned wooden base. Former student Alden Taylor (whose family raises the geese that got this whole auction started) created a stunning gold and silver sculpture, An Unexpected Turn.

The eggs will be revealed in all their splendor at an Opening Exhibit, free and open to the public, on Friday, May 12th from 7:00 to 9:00 pm. If you just can't wait, you can view many of the eggs right now by going to the Open Fields website at www.openfields.org. Many of the eggs are also on display during the month of April at the Howe Library and Main Street Kitchens in Hanover, NH, and at the Norwich (VT) Bookstore.

Absentee bids will be accepted at the website and at the Opening and Preview. Live telephone bids during the auction will definitely get things boiling. More information is available at www.openfields.org or by calling the school at 802-785-2077.

Perennially popular, and always eggciting, this event is the largest fundraiser for Open Fields, a small, independent elementary school founded in 1971 in Thetford Hill, Vermont. Rolled out every two years, the Great Goose Eggstravaganza has earned as much as $18,000 in just three hours of spirited bidding, with eggs going for as little as $25 and as much as, yes, $1,000. It is a tribute to the excellence and creativity (and sense of humor) of Open Fields that it can attract such a gaggle of locally and nationally famous artists to regularly cook up an egg for this auction.

But it’s not who these people are so much as what they do, which is something quite wonderful: transform a simple egg into a beautiful, creative, and often humorous objet d’art eggstraordinaire. Please visit the website, come to the preview, leave an absentee bid, phone in a bid, or - better yet - come to the auction in person and take home an egg, prepared just the way you like it.