52 Forms of Fungi || #34

In Washington, we hiked in the Snoqualmie-Mt. Baker National Forest in the North Cascades, which was pretty much heaven for me in terms of the ecosystem and diversity of fungi.  One of the most striking species we came across had a cap of deep purple that had somewhat of a shimmer to it (perhaps from moisture on the tiny hairs?).  The rich, dark color was easy to overlook in the shadows of the trees, but was truly beautiful to behold.  As I was going through my new guidebook that I mentioned in the last post, I knew as soon as I flipped to the page that this is what I had seen.  Violet cort.  I also thought it funny that this species has been on my list for a while, as I was drawn to it in earlier research.  I really had no idea how much it would impact me to see it in person, but feel fortunate to have had the opportunity.  The bottom photo shows one of the mushrooms that I observed.  The setting is vastly different, but in November in Oklahoma, you work with what you can!

This structure was knitted as part of my 52 Forms of Fungi project. Check out more of the forms from this project.

52 Forms of Fungi || #33

While in the Paxton Gate store in Portland, OR last month, I picked up a field guide to western mushrooms entitled All That the Rain Promises, and More, by David Arora. If you take a look at the cover, you'll see why it caught my eye - it depicts a trombone player in concert attire, sneaking around harvesting mushrooms before a gig.  I laughed, and then opened it up to discover that it's actually a pretty informative and user friendly guide and then decided to buy it as a souvenir.

While looking through and spotting many of what I believe to be the species I saw in the North Cascades during the same trip, I was also inspired by some of them for this series and added to my list of fungi to knit.  The first is velvety black earth tongue.  The dark color and dainty form stood out to me, since it's pretty different from most of the species I've incorporated into this project.

This structure was knitted as part of my 52 Forms of Fungi project. Check out more of the forms from this project.

52 Forms of Fungi || #32

Sarcosphaera coronaria.  A grayish rubbery (in appearance) egg shape forms only to break open and reveal a beautiful purple interior.  It's like the geode of fungi!  So beautiful.  This is another great example of a species that just stunned me with its unique features when I was researching new forms to create.  As if there's a species of fungi that doesn't have that result.

According to Wikipedia, it grows in the mountains within coniferous forests, forming underneath humus on the forest floor and often appearing after the snow begins to melt away.  It can also apparently bioaccumulate toxic chemicals such as arsenic.  I wonder if it may be cultivated for bioremediation?  It's amazing what nature can do.

I used Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine yarn for this phase, which was so graciously provided to me by Berroco.  Just a couple of phases are left to create from the stash they sent me, on top of the 20 forms left to complete the series.  Violet crown cup utilized the Steel Cut Oats and Lavender Mix color ways. No matter the gauge of Ultra Alpaca used, one of my favorite parts of this yarn (besides the softness) is the stitch definition.  I use it for so many projects!

This structure was knitted as part of my 52 Forms of Fungi project. Check out more of the forms from this project.

All The Little Details

I never cease to be amazed by the texture in these amazing little organisms.  The cap on this little guy was only about 3-4 inches across, but check out the level of detail in the underside.  J found him when cleaning out the flower bed a few weeks back.  It's unfortunately been too warm lately to do much hiking, so sometimes inspiration from the yard must suffice.  The bottom photo is from an excursion to our favorite hiking spot in town last month.

September is here - I always sigh a bit of relief when August is gone.  The heat will gradually subside and I will take a deep breath and suddenly crisp fall air, colorful leaves and seasonal yard decorations will appear.  I live for this season.

Happy Weekend.

Fungi

I'm always on the lookout for different types of fungi when I'm out in the yard or on a hike.  Here are a few that I've spotted recently!

52 Forms of Fungi || #31

I've always loved looking at photos of this type of fungi - the brightness of the colors and stacked/fanned out growth habit are very beautiful.  Sulfur shelf, or chicken of the woods mushroom, grows on living or dead trees, often on the main trunk.  Its presence on a living tree indicates extensive decay and increased potential for tree failure.

This is another piece which Berroco so kindly provided yarn for me to create.  Made with Ultra Alpaca, the color ways shown are Masa and Grove Mix.  I still have a few more phases left involving the lovely Berroco yarns!

This structure was knitted as part of my 52 Forms of Fungi project. Check out more of the forms from this project.

52 Forms of Fungi || #30

Cedar-apple rust (or hawthorne, or quince, etc) is one of the most alien looking natural wonders that I have witnessed in my area.  A multiple host disease, it passes back and forth between eastern red cedar and apple.  It affects other trees in that family here as well.  The cedar stage involves the formation of these bright orange, gelatinous tendrils coming forth from a dark brown gall-like sphere in the spring months. Red cedar doesn't seem to come to harm from it, though the other host will develop protrusions of its own on its leaves and continually defoliate.  We've had problems with hawthorne trees in the landscape due to this… they just don't do well.

The fruiting structures are fascinating, though!  I love observing them.  The first year I noticed this disease was a very prolific year for the structures, and I remember just being awestruck!

Rusts don't fall into the same group as the other things knitted for this project, but they're still in Kingdom Fungi so I think that's close enough--don't you?  If anyone has photos they have taken of cedar apple rust in its fullness, please post one on my Facebook wall and I will share it with the page!  We didn't get much rain this spring, so the ones I saw (below, at the bottom of the post) had already dried up by the next time I went out.

An added bonus: Here is what the eastern red cedar stage looks like when the fruiting structure is just starting to form!

Mushroom (The Journal of Wild Mushrooming) Feature

A few days ago I was excited to return from vacation to find the latest issue of Mushroom: The Journal of Wild Mushrooming in our stack of mail from the week.  Inside was a nice little feature on my 52 Forms of Fungi project!  (speaking of which, I will have a new post for the series up next week!)

 Thank you very much to Leon and the folks at Mushroom The Journal for sharing my work - it's very exciting to see in print!  I'm glad to have been made aware of this publication with its abundance of great information and interesting articles about fungi.  Interested in subscribing?  You can learn how, here!

If you found my blog through the article, welcome and thank you for following along.  Happy mushrooming!

Ample Moisture

Oklahoma saw a late spring this year, and just in the last couple of weeks have we started receiving some of those "April showers" that supposedly bring on the "May flowers" and henceforth.  I planted my garden weeks ago and have relied on my trusty garden hose to keep it watered, but for several days we saw some continuous rain amounting to a few inches in the end.

I've seen some inky cap mushrooms pop up here and there since my entire garden is covered in a nice thick layer of wood chip mulch, but as the rains kept going they really seemed to find their happy place.  One morning I came outside to witness this - an entire area of the garden covered in these little shrooms.  It's odd how quickly they change.  I took these photos about 30 minutes to an hour after I first spotted them.  Initially, they still looked fresh and the caps were not curling upward yet.  By photo time they had started to deteriorate some and A noticeable change in color was apparent.  I came out an hour later and they had disintegrated into a mere memory.  Had I not seen them earlier I would not have known of their presence, save for a close observation of tiny black fibers across the mulch.

I love the textures in this top photo - this is one of my favorite attributes of fungi: the textures.  So intricate, despite how small they are.

And now it's raining again...

Succession

It was an honor to be involved in threshold: the promised land at START Norman.  While I was taking down my work recently, I wondered how the space would be transformed in the coming years.  There's some fascinating history there.

Here are some full scale images of my installation.  I hope to have some photos of the collaboration to show in the near future as well.

Succession / 52 Forms of Fungi || #29

I love polypores.  Mushrooms are cute, but there's just something fascinating to me about finding a tree with a ladder of conks growing up the trunk.  They pose a challenge to knit, mostly due to the shape and attachment element, but the colors are especially pleasing to the eye when I get to work on them.  Knit Picks Palette really has become a favorite yarn of mine, simply because of the fact that with 150 shades to choose from it's pretty easy to create that fade from light to dark when necessary.  I have a giant basket full of probably about 1/3 of the colors they offer - HA!

Anyway, what we have here is resinous polypore, created as part of my Succession installation for START Norman (on display for another week!).  The fruiting structures of this species are rather fleshy - I've seen them on trees before and remember the sponginess when poked.  They typically grow on very rotted wood - fallen logs, dead wood, old stumps, etc.

Succession / 52 Forms of Fungi || #28

I knitted velvet foot fungi as one of the species of my Succession installation for START Norman this month.  The exhibition, Threshold: the promised land, incorporated several site-specific installations at the Old Lumber Yard on Main St in Norman, OK.  I wrote more about the background of the project and my installation in my introductory post.

Velvet foot fungus is an interesting one.  It is commonly cultivated for culinary use, but the cultivated mushrooms look completely different from the ones that grow in the wild.  I already knitted the cultivated version last year - the enoki mushroom.  On a side note, I finally tried cooking with them and I highly recommend it!  We used them in Tom Kha Gai, a favorite recipe in our household.

Anyhow, according to Mushroom Expert, this species was also the FIRST MUSHROOM TO ENTER OUTER SPACE.  That's right, these guys were taken on a shuttle mission to study how fungi would react in low gravity.  Pretty cool, huh?  Beyond that, they grow in clumps on decaying stumps and the caps tend to look a little rubbery.

Niche, From a Distance

As promised, here are some photos of the outdoor installations for Niche, from a distance.  I took down the exhibit yesterday, and it was interesting to see how the pieces had changed after being out in the rain and sun for a month.  I am told that the realism of the installations had some people going for a minute, but I'm glad that they got people observing the environment of the park and hope that they continue to do so in their daily lives.  I would like to give a big Thank You! to the staff at Martin Park Nature Center for being so accommodating and awesome throughout the duration of the exhibit, and thank you to everyone who went by and checked it out!

First up… burnt orange bolete.  This was probably the most conspicuous installation, set underneath a giant bur oak tree on Trail B.  Every installation is fun, but placing multiple large mushrooms in a forest tends to make me a little giddy.  By the way, if you fall in love with these and would like to have one of your own, I have some available in my Etsy shop!

False turkey tail.  Probably the most difficult to find, because it sat down off the trail a few yards, and to be honest I think some plant life started to obscure it a small amount toward the end.  But part of the fun is finding it, right?  So easy to overlook, but vibrant once you see it.  This was located on the west side of Trail loop A.

Stalked scarlet cup.  Directly next to a bend in the trail (on Trail C), some people stopped and told me they thought they were tiny red flowers at first, while I was taking the photos of them.  Installing these reminded me of Decomposition: Colony I & Decomposition: Colony II, because they were so small and numerous.  Nostalgia for the beginning of my installation work; so much has happened since then!

Niche / 52 Forms of Fungi || #27

Burnt orange bolete is the final species that inspired an installation for Niche at Martin Park Nature Center.  I can't believe the exhibit has almost been up for a month!  I will be a little sad to take it down this weekend, but early next week I'll share some photos of the full installations for those of you who don't live near Oklahoma City or weren't able to make it out there.

In honor of the closing of my exhibit, I've also made a few additional burnt orange boletes which are now posted in my Etsy shop!  A little piece of Niche for your very own home… Check out the listing here.

As a forester and arborist I'm relatively familiar with the nature of the relationship between mycorrhizae and tree roots.  I've heard/read all about how they benefit one another and how that symbiosis works, but there is little pointed out in my arboriculture resources about the fruiting bodies of the mycorrhizal fungi… It's been fun learning more details about some of these species and "putting a face to the name" in terms of different species of fungi that benefit trees by increasing root surface area, thus aiding in the absorption of water and minerals.  Nature is just too cool, you guys.

See more creations from Niche.

Check out the rest of the 52 Forms of Fungi series.

Niche / 52 Forms of Fungi || #26

It seems there's so much variation in turkey tail and false turkey tail; any differentiation between them would not be made apparent by my knitting in this instance.  From what I've read, the main difference between the two species is that turkey tail has a pore surface on its underside, while false turkey tail is smooth.  According to Mushroom Expert, it's actually a crust fungus rather than a polypore.  Yarn isn't so crusty, but you get the idea.  I'm calling these false turkey tail because that was the species of the images I modeled these after, and because I've already made a version of turkey tail.  It's interesting to me how algae can contribute to their coloring by producing a green hue on the brackets.  It makes for some nice fiber contrast!  This is another species that inspired an outdoor installation at Martin Park Nature Center for Niche.

I also wanted to announce - I have added a lot of new products to my Society 6 shop, so if you like my work but aren't interested in having an art print, there are other ways you can have it in your life! New products include tote bags, iPhone cases, wall clocks, greeting cards, throw pillows, laptop skins, shirts, etc.  Just click on the image you would like to purchase products for and scroll down to see what's available… or use the item menu on the left hand side of the shop page to see what images are available in those items.  I hope this makes my art more accessible for more people!  Thanks for checking it out.

See more creations from Niche.

Check out the rest of the 52 Forms of Fungi series.

Niche / 52 Forms of Fungi || #25

Stalked scarlet cup is the first of the three outdoor installations included in Niche at Martin Park Nature Center.  Given that this is a 52 Forms of Fungi post, I will just show you some close-ups, and will post full scale photos showing the entire view of all three outdoor installations later on.  This one is located along Trail C in the park, which is the one furthest south across the bridge to the creek.  This species of fungi is pretty tiny, and quite remarkable to see.  I've only come across it once, but was mesmerized by the tiny red cup (which was actually much smaller than the ones that I created here).

See more creations from Niche.

Check out the rest of the 52 Forms of Fungi series.

Niche / Devil's Urn Revisited

I made some Devil's Urn fungi last year after observing many on a weekend at Beaver's Bend State Park.  To be truthful, I wasn't ever that happy with how it turned out and decided to make it again as a component of the indoor installation for Niche.  One interesting aspect of Devil's Urn is how the brownish hue on the outside of the cup almost seems transparent.  The deep black exhibited on the inner cup really shows through - it's almost like the outer brown layer is just dusted on.  I tried using color work to show for this the first time around, but it just didn't look quite right.  This time I used some lace weight yarn with a larger needle to knit an outer cup that would appear really open and let the inner black layer show through the stitches.  I think this meets my expectations much better!

Learn more about Niche, an exhibit in Martin Park Nature Center for the month of April.

View more phases of the 52 Forms of Fungi Series.

Niche / 52 Forms of Fungi || #24

I really love the shaping the forms of knitted boletes.  Perhaps it's the two-toned coloring that contributes to this, but they are just plump and cute and are fun to look at in a big pile of leaves.  More on that later.  This is violet-gray bolete, which I made for the indoor installation of Niche at Martin Park Nature Center.

Violet-gray bolete is mycorrhizal, which means that it exists in a symbiotic relationship with a nearby tree root system, usually oak or some other hardwood.  The fungus' mycelia assist the tree with absorption of water and minerals, while the tree provides nutrition for the fungus.  These mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of the mycorrhizae which help it to reproduce.

Find out more about Niche, on exhibit at Martin Park Nature Center

View more from the 52 Forms of Fungi series.

Niche / 52 Forms of Fungi || #23

Eastern cauliflower.  A big ruffly mass of long, slender, contorted branches all growing from the same base.  Probably typically more tightly frilled than this one here, though some of the forms I observed in my research were a little sparser in their branching.  Clearly, I went with that.  The really dense fruiting bodies remind me of labyrinths, or those ribbon-like hard candies your grandma used to have in her candy jar.  You know the ones I'm talking about - usually multicolored?… Anyway… This piece is part of a small indoor installation at Martin Park Nature Center, along with a couple of other species that I will save for another post.  This makes species one out of six included in Niche, which will be up in the park for the duration of April.

Check out more forms from the 52 Forms of Fungi project Learn more about Niche

StART Norman || Succession + lichen

StART Norman is a project of the Norman Arts Council, "...born out of the idea that the arts can affect positive and lasting change through placemaking – the act of bringing the “community” back to the Community through a series of art exhibits and installations and temporary improvements to a designated area of Downtown Norman.

I am excited to be a part of Threshold: the promised land, an exhibit of installations by several local artists in the Old Lumber Yard on Main St in Norman, part of the StART Norman project.  Here is the curatorial statement for the exhibit from curators Laura Reese and heather ahtone:

Threshold: the promised land will explore the space as a site for transformation. Threshold implies an opening for change, a boundary yet to be crossed, and the maximum or minimum point of change. The phrase “promised land” brings to mind hope and new beginnings, as well as reflection on local history. The artists will create work that examines themes around building, construction and future potential as well as the economy of exchange. In the early years of the city’s second century, Norman’s citizens seek to express the vibrancy of the community and to celebrate the diversity that makes it an amazing place to live. The exhibition will be accompanied by educational programming and creative performance by local musicians, performance artists, poets, and others. The intent of this installation is to transform the community of Norman through the vehicle of art, reflecting inclusivity and respect as core values of the city.

My installation is entitled "Succession".  Many of the themes I commonly explore with my work apply here, but at the same time this site is very different--- it is man-made.  Much like with Dyed-In-The-Wool, I am intrigued by the breakdown of a once heavily used and well maintained structure that has been reclaimed in a way by the natural environment.  Its next stage of life - succession.

In addition to "Succession", I have also been working on a collaboration with an artist who I very much admire and who shares my affinity for tiny woodland organisms, Sarah Hearn.  She is creating several small lichen installations and we have worked together on one of them, which I'm very excited to see in its final state.

The images in this post are just some recent progress shots.  The opening is this Friday, March 11th at 6 PM, and the exhibit will be up through May 10th!