Now that Frank Villard has the time, he carves ostrich eggs. A lot of them.
“We have a houseful here,” he said of his house in North Battleford. “I need a way to market the stuff.”
Villard is a retired sign painter, and one of his eggs recently won a second place prize in the Showcase of Arts Fine Art Competition at the Saskatoon Ex.
Villard started carving wood, then moved on to ostrich eggs.
Decorative ostrich eggs are made of eggs that didn’t incubate. Villard also carves emu eggs. He used to get eggs from the Meeting Lake area, although he said his supplier passed away. Ostrich egg suppliers understand the demand, and price can be around $40 an egg now, rather than a previous price of $20.
Upon acquiring the eggs, Villard said he has to clean them to avoid salmonella. Carving eggs creates calcium dust that can cause irritation.
“A couple times I didn’t use a mask and it’ll leave you a little crappy.”
Ostrich eggshell is about the thickness of a nickel, and Villard carves eggs with what resembles a dentist drill with diamond bits. Birds and headdresses are less complicated than some other designs, such as roses and leaves that can leave the eggs looking like doilies. Villard said the art competition organizers didn’t want to handle some of the more intricate designs so he didn’t enter them.
Villard is more familiar with Americans carving decorative eggs, and Adaline Villard (who Frank calls his “spokesman”) said they’re the only ones that they know in Saskatchewan who do it.
Like any artwork, carving eggs isn’t all sunshine and roses.
“You can work on an egg then find out when you get three parts done there’s a crack in it because the long legged suckers stand up when they lay the egg.”
Depending on the design and the buyer, the eggs can fetch high prices. Frank mentioned a woman in Chicago who bought five eggs each worth between $5,000 to $7,000.
“I wish she’d adopt me,” Frank said, laughing.
