Art imitates Life. Life imitates art. Mushrooms, Mycelium, Mycology, and the Manipulation of such to create something awe inspiringly impressive is a venture undertaken by those with the inherent curiosity to explore how we all connect.
A MycoArtist takes a hand in guiding the natural behavior of fungi through the creative process. A MycoArtist facilitates the assumption of shape, of form, of structure. A MycoArtist works with the very substrate of life as a medium.
We support Mycoartists!
MycoArtist in Residence June 2022 – ? Melissa Spiegel
Hello! My name is Melissa. Through art, I hope to create relationships with the ecosystems and organisms I live alongside. I hope to support their vitality and strength and illustrate their beauty in exchange for the creation of materials; paper, dyes, inks, food and medicine. I am also quite interested in presenting the lifespan of a piece of art.
Outside of art, I have worked at a studio producing botanical soaps and body care, providing medicinal mushrooms at farmer’s markets, on organic farms, at an art studio growing and harvesting fibers for paper and lastly in an organization of community gardens. All of these provided different interactions with the natural world around me.
In working with Collar City Mushrooms, I hope to create a living mural of mushrooms. We are experimenting with different types of fungi and their ability to thrive off of paper created from fibers harvested in the local area. The goal is to create an assemblage of paper and mushrooms that will be pasted onto city walls! We hope to also provide an environment for them to grow enough for passerbys to harvest.
Collar City Mushrooms 