Christel Assante

- Dragon, (10,5) Sculpture, Egg

- Mer, (10,5) Scultpure, Egg/acrylic paint

Christel Assante

     Born and raised in France, she grew up with no artistic education, more of just regular school, and did not go to college. She liked to draw a lot and is not sure what got her into egg art, but possibly the idea of symbols being transformed to a 3d environment. She has worked on egg shell carvings for 8 years total, each idea becoming more and more creative and better presented. She uses emu, ostrich, nandu, goose, pheasant, duck, and quail eggs for her art, but prefers the nandu because it is thick and gives more possibilities, but very difficult to find. People donate eggs to her, usually friends and family who own animals who lay. Her tools of choice are knifes, vinegar and a mini drill with a diamond coated drill. She can take well up to 50hours working on one egg, its a very time consuming process for she has to watch out about cracking the egg, shattering the egg, or just messing up period because if you mess up you can't fix it.  Christel is currently the most popular Egg Carver in all of France because of her unique style and delicate hands.

     Christel Assante relates to our art because eggs are edible objects, the contents inside we often use to create many delicious meals and even art! Her above egg ,Mer, took a very long time mostly because of the paining involved, but also the carving. The dragon however is her most favorite work because of the level of detail and the patience involved in producing it.