STATE ARTISTS EGGS-CLUDED

WASHINGTON

This is not a big egg-sposé, but let's just say some feathers were ruffled when a Californian was asked to design the Nevada egg for this year's White House Easter celebration.

The American Egg Board, which coordinates the annual display for the White House, could not find a Nevada artist who works with eggs to create a holiday decoration, said Christine Bushway, the board's director of state programs.

These are not the eggs you color at your kitchen table. For most of these eggs, the innards are drained through teeny straws, the brittle shells penetrated by high-speed air drills, and the insides and outsides trimmed with intricate designs making use of most anything that can be found in an art supply shop.

Bobbie Ann Howell, a Las Vegan who created Nevada's egg last year, said that perhaps the egg board could have looked harder. She said she knows "egg artists" in Nevada and some are sure to feel snubbed.

"That is interesting," Howell said. "We have plenty of Nevada artists who would have probably liked the opportunity had they known."

As Nevadans and as artists, "we are always fighting for our identity," Howell said.

Bushway, of the egg board, said artists usually are not chosen two years in a row.

Eggs representing each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia were put on display this week at the White House Visitor Center, and they'll remain there through April 24.

The eggs, which by rule must be from chickens, can be viewed at www.whitehouse.gov/easter/2007/eggsbystate/.

This year's Nevada entry was crafted by Peggy Cowgill of Roseville, Calif. Though she is not a Nevadan, nobody is complaining about her effort or her egg.

Cowgill modeled her egg on the Faberge style -- glitzy and elaborate.

"I went after the bling," said Cowgill, a 65-year-old retired cocktail waitress.

In a nod to the Silver State, "the inside of the egg is glittered to represent silver dust," Cowgill said. "I have four coats of silver paint on the outside, and then the filigree cutwork was done with an air tool much like a dental drill, a high-speed air drill."

Inside the shell is a faux nugget topped by a charm bracelet miner that Cowgill found at a shop in Reno.

The egg is titled "The Silver Legacy."

"I was honored to be chosen for the state of Nevada," Cowgill said. "They wanted something that represented the state, and what better than we found silver and that it sparkles like diamonds."

Cowgill, who has worked with eggshells for 15 years, said she applied to make California's egg but someone had already been picked. The egg board asked if she would do Nevada's instead.

Bushway said Wyoming's egg also was created by an out-of-state artist this year.

The board, which is the promotion arm of the egg industry, develops contacts in most states where it works with poultry and egg growers, Bushway said.

"But we don't have promotion people in every state, and we don't have egg production in every state," she said.

The board contacted the International Egg Art Guild asking for recommendations but came up empty there as well, she said.

"Really it is the luck of the draw," Bushway said. "I thought we would be all set this year, and then I got with the egg guild people and we couldn't find someone."

Cowgill said she does have a connection to Nevada. She and husband Curt lived in Las Vegas for a year in the mid-1990s while he was an ironworker during construction of the MGM Grand.

"I loved Las Vegas," she said. "I left my heart there."