So. The question "why" keeps popping up. Why? Why a 160 foot egg with some stained glass windows of a knot, in the middle of nowhere, in Columbus, New Mexico?

It began back in 1983-84. With a doodle. I was a truck driver, and this was way before cell phones, so I was on pay phones a lot. Calling customers, arranging schedules. Things like that. And always as I talked I doodled. This particular doodle somehow escaped being thrown away. Not only that, but it managed to captivate me. So when I quit driving truck, I began to play with it. A very simple version of a pretty sophisticated knot. Four hearts on a single unbroken intertwined line. Like a figure eight, only four hearts. It turned out this knot was known in India. The ancient Celts knew it. I suspect many ancient peoples were aware of it through the ages. What it meant to them is a mystery.

So the first answer to this why, is curiosity. Where did this doodle come from to me, and what could the four hearts possibly mean? At first I thought it symbolized the interconnection of a Family. Mother, Father, Daughter and Son. Further reflection suggested the tight-knit relationship of the four elements: Earth, Water, Air and Fire. Then came the realization of the interconnectedness of all life. Animals, fish, insects and plants. The amazing dependence of everything on everything else. Now we suspect that the whole Universe is interconnected to the point where it seems that even our thoughts have an effect on everything. When I look over my scant records of the development of the Hearts, I see it took me about four years to notice that what they're really showing me is the inseparability of Humanity. Four Hearts for the four Races, as One. The Human Race on an unbroken interconnected circuit of Hearts. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a long time ago said, "We may have all come here on different boats, but we're all in the same boat now.”

Curiosity.

They say it killed the cat, but as this idea pulled me along, as it led me, it seemed to me pretty wild and amazing. Ultimately I saw that the basic unit of these various drawings was the triangle, so I began cutting them up and rearranging them, which created a lot of very interesting designs. The swastika, also a very old symbol, appeared out of nowhere. And then, suddenly, the Vesica Piscis, which meant nothing to me except that it suggested "the great pa-china. The Plains of the Yoni Flower." At the same time the National Geographic published a photo of what is now known as the Hourglass Nebula, which is the exact same shape out in space, 8,000 light years away. It still meant nothing to me until I encountered it (the Vesica) again at the Academy, where I went to study sculpture, and I understood that it was the birthplace of all geometric forms.

The second part of the answer to "why" is that decades later I came to realize that we all create this world, even at the individual level. That too seemed curious.

And perhaps the most curious aspect of this Idea of the huge egg is the third part of the answer to this "why." It's simply trust. I began to trust the Idea.

How, is interesting. I could just say that, you know, I really don't know why or how things happen. Which is quite true. But I know what's happened. Let me tell you. I'm Ukrainian. Was born in Germany right after World War Two ended. Was raised in Minnesota. New Mexico was never, ever, part of the equation. No. Never even thought about it. And yet, almost ten years ago, as I was driving from California to Georgia, my car blew up in Deming, New Mexico, and after wandering around for four days as the car was being fixed, I said to my self, "you know, this is much nicer than Georgia," and I ended up living in a "hole in the wall" kind of place called Columbus. New Mexico. How did that happen? The lady I was renting from had twenty acres, and after a while she told me I could do anything I wanted to. So I had the idea of a sculpture garden, and she said o.k. Which sort of brings me back to the idea that we all create this world. A lot of what we do has made consumers out of us. An awful lot of what we do has a very negative influence on our planet. We build ultra-high-end playgrounds for the rich and famous. Space Stations. We all know some of this world. But my problem was that I'd never had any classes on how an old man, by himself, with very little money, can help create a better world. On top of that, I've been following an Idea. Not my plan, but the Idea's the leader. It's the one always showing me aspects of itself. It shows, and I do. A collaboration. At first I thought it was about money. But I don't know money, other than you need it to live. I don't believe I was born as a human being simply to make money. Or just to have fun. Having fun is fine, but not a priority for life. Happiness is a different matter. But anyway, when the money idea fizzled out, the doors opened and new concepts began appearing. It's true. You gotta do what you love and love what you do. So I began making the sculpture garden. Oasis, a friend suggested, as Columbus is semi-desert. I didn't see any connection between the Hearts and this new endeavor. I was simply making a sculpture oasis as a gift, a thank you, to Mother Earth, the Mother of God, and all mothers. For the miracle of life. I figured that Mother Earth gives us absolutely everything we need. For shelter, food... All the materials we need to make what we make. It's amazing! We take it all so for granted. So I felt a Thank You would be nice. Plus, I planned to leave it all to the Village of Columbus. Maybe it could somehow in the future help it. The Watts Towers became an inspiration for me. The man spent over thirty years building, by himself, and upon their completion he simply left. Now, the city of L.A. operates the site as a tourist attraction. Someone once asked him why he didn't hire help, and he said "I don't know what I'm doing. So how would I tell someone else what to do?" And that's how it is with the Oasis. I don't have a plan. It comes by itself. From the Hearts. I know it sounds crazy, but it ain't. I knew it when the thoughts of wanting to see the Vesica three-dimensionally began appearing. I'd never built anything out of metal and cement, and this shape ended up being 14 feet tall, 42 feet long and 28 feet wide? Took me three years to build it. No fancy tools, just, you know, a couple of ladders, some boards. A wheelbarrow. I began to understand that one person can do an awful lot. I should've been a writer. Wouldn't have to deal with all the things that weigh so much.

At any rate, the egg was already a part of my consciousness for a few years. I'd already made a small cosmic egg, and a -what?- a basketball size egg with a woman inside it. No idea why. Had already talked with family members about a huge, 150 foot tall egg. Not too many ideas about why yet. But when I saw the Vesica as a shape, I knew it was the most perfect symbol for Woman ever! Two breasts and a womb. Man! What a huge door that opened! The womb is where all life begins? With a tiny egg. I thought "oh! Egg.” Hmm. That somehow morphed into a journey from birth to death, which was very strange. I thought "I'd just orchestrated my own death?" Then a totally new thing appeared. I wrote the word ME and put it on a mirror and saw WE. Words as windows began. So I made a large ME that was a window. It spins around horizontally to become WE, but sadly it only works if you look at it from the front. From the back, the letter "E" is backwards. It works better with numbers. 101, 888, etc. etc... And I kept thinking, yes! A HUGE EGG! Voila!!!

For thirty some years the Idea has led me. The Oasis, still a work in progress, has been growing for eight years, and finally I have an inkling of what the "why" is behind the EGG. I believe most life begins with an egg. Mostly we think of chicken eggs, but even they begin microscopic. The human egg certainly is. And for nine months it just grows. In an environment where it doesn't need to worry about anything. I believe that maybe on some level it knows how perfect everything is. How perfect life is. No need to eat, to breathe. No need for toilet paper. No need to talk. It's amazing. For nine months, a woman has two bodies.

What?

So I believe the Huge Egg wants to be a Monument of Humanity. In these troubling times when all sorts of isms seem to be resurfacing along with rampant greed and corruption, the Egg wants to be. To remind us of the interconnectedness of all. I've looked at a lot of monuments for Humanity on the internet, and mostly they're about particular individuals, but I believe Humanity, all seven billion of us, can only be represented as a symbol. And no better place for such a Monument than little ole Columbus, New Mexico. Three miles from Old Mexico where walls are being built, a reminder that walls can't separate us, that the color of our skin or our gender can't separate us. That's just how it is. We can't separate ourselves from the rest of life. From a certain perspective it looks as if we humans are the cancer on the body of Mother Earth. Slowly killing our host with all sorts of pollution. We should maybe pay more attention to the youth of the world. They're getting plenty worried about the environment, about the violence in schools and churches. It's not ME. It's WE. It's hard to come out of my seclusion to go on with this Idea. But I've created a not-for-profit corporation called hotwu, (Hearts of the World United) for the purpose of fundraising. I've used only my small pension to build the oasis, but the Monument could involve twenty to thirty million dollars. That's a lot of money for something that isn't for profit. Monuments are for contemplation. For celebration. They're there to make us proud. A statement that is maybe more accessible because it's visual.

The basic schedule for fundraising, planning/design, realization, target for opening... All these things depend on public response and the donation of funds. It all depends on whether the Idea resonates with people world-wide. I'm but one seven billionth of Humanity and I must admit, that, again curiosity; I'm curious if there are enough people out there to accept responsibility for the state of the world instead of just waiting for the governments to figure it out. Of course it seems to me that legal and bureaucratic obstacles may arise that will need money. The architect will need money to begin planning how to construct a shape of this size. All these things will develop quite organically.

I like the questions "why is this project important? Why should I contribute my hard earned money for it? Why should I care?" Arlene Rosenberg has a pretty powerful song that sort of pertains to this. The title of the song is "not the song i wanna sing". It's sort of like the song "Strange Fruit". You don't really wanna listen to a song about a lynching, but if you do, it'll get you! One of the higher-ups in D.C. at one point said "this whole Me Too Movement poses an existential threat to Patriarchy." Or the White House official who said that the Central Park Five should be hung from a tree. If you don't care that our government representatives talk like this, that's fine. We're all different. I don't believe that hate and fear ever solved anything. You just gotta give it all you've got, whatever it is that is you. That's what the Universe does. It gives us all it has. Only we're too involved with the ME to notice. The "dark" of the night is just as beautiful as the "light" of the day. We're all a part of it. Giving is a very subtle concept.

The very most amazing thing is that a word showed up that can be seen from front or back, upside down or not and still make sense. MOM! WOW MOM! Words as windows... For a long time I'd thought about art. What is it? Where do I fit in? It's many things. For a lot of people it's probably decor. For many it's a huge investment. An income. Some people say art is freedom. Pleasure... It seems to me art is mostly about communication. The visual telling of a story. Or through sound... An international language that doesn't rely on words. At first I thought that music and math, numbers are the two wordless languages understood by all. But there's more. All of our emotions are wordless communications. Art is a way of recreation. How we momentarily re-create ourselves. Our sense of wonder. An escape from our every day worries and trials and tribulations, if even for a brief moment. A fresh sense of beauty. Of awe. It's amazing how people really enjoy seeing art in the open spaces. Maybe it's because it's unexpected. Something spontaneous. And it fills you with a quiet kind of happiness.

So.

If you like this story, you can help make it real. You can play a part in making something invisible, an Idea, take form.

       Thank You.

— Taras Mychalewych, August 2019

The whole thing of the Egg obviously began with really funky drawings. It was pretty interesting, really. Using just a compass and a straight edge, it didn’t quite work. Didn’t look like an egg, with straight lines connecting the two circles.

Amazingly enough, I remembered that I had some “French Curves”. Tools from way back. Our Dad was an architectural artist among other things, so he had all these “old-time” tools. T-squares, triangles, all kinds of rulers. And “French Curves”. Without ever thinking that I’d reach a point in my life where I’d actually need to use something like these, I ended up with all of these things. So, thank you, Dad.

What’s really hard to believe is that the computer doesn’t seem to have this curve in its architectural set of tools. I was lucky though, and with the help of the curvaceous curve, the egg appeared.

Then, had to remember how numbers work, to do all sorts of figuring. Keeping everything to scale was important. So yeah, this page is just a small example that by itself doesn’t mean very much. Just part of the process.

The first idea of the egg was that it would be just an egg. With solid walls to make it look like the egg shell. An egg without the shell didn’t yet seem an option.

What, cracked, to make an omelet?

No. I was working with the idea of an egg with stained-glass-windows, and windows are always part of a wall.

You can see it in the first photograph. An ostrich egg with 4 windows.

I don’t know. Much later, months, really, for some reason the thought came that you know, it doesn’t need to have walls. I believe it was the idea of how everything is all interconnected, that made it seem that there doesn’t need to be an outside and an inside.

Maybe it was the Wall that was being built at our Southern Border, which is so much about separation, about keeping out.

Maybe it was the memory of how the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr had said how we were all in the same boat now, and wise-ass me thought that yeah, we are, but maybe we’d be better off all being in the water, instead of separating ourselves so much from Nature.

At any rate, the idea came of the walls being more open, so back to the drawing-board to see how that might work.

The maquette for this version turned out almost sloppy, but it was enough for me to see what I was thinking. The outside skin I wanted to be, or look like, expanded steel, so I used mosquito screen.

The thought appealed to me also because such a cover would eliminate the need for heating or air-conditioning. Or lighting. Seemed pretty alright.

So I talked about these ideas with Ostap, who’s the architect that’s willing to work with this project, and he created some computer-generated images of both versions.

He won the world-wide competition that NASA had, for ideas of structures to be built on Mars. A very fearless young man with amazing ideas.

Very cool, I think.