Video: The Matsutake Hunter
I met Amy Peterson at an Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center matsutake hunt that my friend’s mother had invited me to join. Every year, members of Portland’s Japanese American community and their friends and family travel to the Oregon coast or Mt. Hood to hunt for the fragrant matsutake mushrooms, so beloved in Japan. Those with … Continue reading
Recap of the Mushroom, Mold and Yeast Feast!
This is almost a year overdue! Here is our menu and what follows are photos from the Mushroom, Mold and Yeast Feast that we hosted in collaboration with the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art last November 29, 2012, taken by the incomparable photographer Shawn Linehan. It was a truly magical night. Chef Naoko Tamura’s food … Continue reading
A video tribute to the Purple Earth Tongue
Inspired by the Oregon Mushroom Stories project, artist Cynthia Star made this mesmerizing tribute to the endangered purple earth tongue mushroom. We are in love with Cynthia, and this video!
The mushroom zoetrope on video!
Here is a first attempt at capturing our zoetrope – How Mushrooms Grow, an Interactive Sculpture, by Belly & Bones – on film. Many thanks to Matty Sidle for filming and Esquivel for the music. Artists Tony Candelaria and Stef Choi designed and built this zoetrope for the Oregon Mushroom Stories project. It premiered at … Continue reading
Mushroom News We’re Reading
Glasstire: The future is fungal – so says artists Phil Ross, who builds structures with reishi mushrooms. Oregon’s Agricultural Progress: The world of genomics goes fungal. High Country News: Startling and fascinating photos by Eirik Johnson of migrant foragers in the Pacific Northwest. Fast Company: Mushrooms eat plastic? Then get to work! Times Magazine: “I … Continue reading
Here is our KBOO radio interview. Check it out!
Here is the radio program, hosted by the wonderful Chris Seigel of Wealth Underground Farm and Farm to Artist Road Snacks podcast, about our mushroom fair and the zoetrope, which aired on KBOO (90.7 fm in Portland) on December 19, 2012. The whole show is really nice. Thank you so much, Chris! [Feature image photo … Continue reading
Early trials of the zoetrope
Tony and Stef have been hard at work the past two weeks building trial versions of the zoetrope to test out timing, design, mechanics and more. When Tony and Stef conceived of the zoetrope as a way to show a mushroom life cycle, I remember thinking it was a beautiful pairing of things we rarely … Continue reading
Nov 29: Mushroom, Mold & Yeast Feast
Please join us for an intimate dinner prepared by Naoko Tamura of Chef Naoko’s Bento Café. We’ll explore and savor wild and cultivated mushrooms prepared with traditional Japanese ingredients that gain their flavors through processes using molds: miso, sake, shoyu, katsuo-bushi, salt koji, and more. This dinner is a unique opportunity to learn from mushroom … Continue reading
Dec 2 – 3: Come see our exhibition
Artist collective Belly & Bones (Stef Choi & Tony Candelaria) is creating an interactive zoetrope sculpture that presents a fungi life cycle, from mycelia to mushroom. This larger-than-life zoetrope (four feet in diameter!) presents a sequence of sculptures that sprout into mushrooms right before your eyes. Alongside the mycelium zoetrope, on December 2 from 2 … Continue reading
Grow your own mushrooms
This summer, my friend Erin left a small box on my kitchen counter. Within days, this began. I took these photos over the course of three mornings. What in the world!? The box came from Back to the Roots, a business that recycles used coffee grounds by inoculating them with oyster mushroom spores. The coffee … Continue reading
We’re building a mycelia zoetrope!
I’m over the moon to share the news that artists Stef Choi and Tony Candelaria received a grant from The Celebration Foundation to build a mycelia zoetrope for our December 2-3, 2012 Oregon Mushroom Stories exhibition (aka The Mush Days). A mycelia zoetrope? Before they submitted their grant proposal, I had never heard of a … Continue reading
Fleshy, tawny, stewed with butter… Must be a mushroom out of history!
Co-worker and friend Kate Carone has dug up 19th century Oregonian articles that mention or focus on mushrooms in the Multnomah County Public Library archives. We are combing through and will post excerpts from our favorites periodically. This is the second post in our series Mushroom Out of History. September 15, 1895. By Mr. … Continue reading
Mycelia are the nervous system of the forest
[Video from KarmaTube] This video features professor and forester Suzanne Simard of the University of British Columbia, explaining the way that mycelia connect trees within a forest. Mycelia, which are the underground fungi network that produce mushrooms, transmit signals as well as nutrients from the largest, oldest “mother trees” to the younger ones to maintain … Continue reading
A frilled, quilled collar, a mushroomy odor… Must be a mushroom out of history!
Co-worker and friend Kate Carone has dug up 19th century Oregonian articles that mention or focus on mushrooms in the Multnomah County Public Library archives. We are combing through and will post excerpts from our favorites periodically. This is the first post in our series Mushroom Out of History. October 17, 1898. Author unknown. … Continue reading
Emily Nachison’s Mushroom Sculptures: Melting Ink Caps and the Magic of the Forest
Emily Nachison creates sculptures and installations that echo the natural world in a haunting and haunted way. She and her partner Michael Endo had a collaborative show at Bullseye Gallery in Northwest Portland in March and April, which included several of Emily’s astonishing cast glass mushroom sculptures set amid Michael’s derelict urban landscapes made from … Continue reading
Introducing Mush Babe!
I designed this character after my dear friend Lola Milholland (director of our Oregon Mushroom Stories project) for her birthday in February. I tried to capture many of the things I adore about Lola: her love of pickles, old Japanese cartoons, playing soccer in a skirt, and her lifelong love of mushrooms. Gary of Container … Continue reading
Jordan Weiss is Bemushroomed
Jordan Weiss is a 47-year-old self-taught mycologist who lives in Corvallis. He’s been in love with mushrooms since the early 1970s and enjoys sharing his low-tech approaches to mushroom cultivation with anyone interested in raising their own mushroom patches. This interview is part of the Oregon Mushroom Stories’ Community Reporters Project. Please participate if you … Continue reading
Tony Migas and Ed Foy Grow Lots of Mushrooms
For two weekends in April, I attended classes about how to grow mushrooms at home. The first was taught by local cultivator Tony Migas, recently the president of the Oregon Mycological Society and an intrepid home cultivator who once tended 45 shitake logs in one small room of his home. (He also claims that he … Continue reading
Fluid sculpture – A way to present mycelia?
Artist Charlie Bucket made this sculpture as a prototype for a “fluid dress” he showed at the 2009 Maker Faire in San Mateo, California. This sculpture is mesmerizing. We have begun thinking about ways to present mycelia in our sculptural installation this fall as part of the Oregon Mushroom Stories project. I thought this could … Continue reading
Dane Osis and His Morel Motherload
Dane Osis is a 35-year-old Park Ranger at Fort Stevens State Park, just outside of Astoria. He grew up on the Oregon Coast and learned to forage beginning in his early twenties from a neighbor. For the past nine years, Dane has led mushroom programs and hikes at State Parks up and down the coast. … Continue reading
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