The inaugural Mushroom Dye Gathering, held Sunday, October 16 at Pacific Textile Arts in Fort Bragg, CA, was an alchemical exploration into the amazing colors that local mushrooms offer to our world. Working in groups, we brewed mushroom dye liquors and achieved a brilliant range of colors with ph and mineral modifiers. The goal for the day was to dye enough felt swatches for each participant to make a small bunting banner to take home, along with sample yarns in an earthy rainbow of colors.
As part of the Larry Spring Museum’s Chaos Fungorum 22: Do Mycelium Dream of Electric Humans?, and funded through an Impact Grant from the California Arts Council, the Dye Gathering celebrated the curiosity of Mendocino fiber artist and International Mushroom Dye Institute founder, Miriam Rice, whose pioneering research into artistic applications for fungi, including natural dyes and pigments, led the modern resurgence of using mushrooms for color.
The gathering was an immensely heartwarming community endeavor. Friends and participants gathered and donated fresh mushrooms in advance of the day- Phaeolus schweinitzii, (dyer’s polypore) of various ages – which yielded golds and greens, one Hydnellum aurantiacum, which yielded a lovely blue-gray, and a nice potful of Hypomyces lactifluorum (lobster mushroom), which presented us with brilliant pinks and oranges. Most specially, Nancy Denison, PTA member, IMDI Board member, and student of Miriam Rice’s, generously donated her collection of dried and frozen mushrooms to the group, including a freezer-bagful of Cortinarius phoeniceus, which was brilliantly seeping red before it hit the dye-pot, and many jars of dried specimens still labelled with Miriam’s handwriting. PTA donated pre-mordanted yarns for our sample skeins and PTA members Nancy Trissel and Mickie McCormac contributed their time and expertise with prep, planning, and day-of guidance. About 15 folks participated – of all ages and levels of experience – and everyone left happy, if a bit exhausted, with their endeavors.
About Pacific Textile Arts
Pacific Textile Arts is an all volunteer educational nonprofit existing to support, share, and celebrate the fiber arts. PTA’s campus includes a gallery in their historic Victorian house, where exhibits are new each month; an extensive catalogued textile library; a tapestry weaving studio; and a large classroom for meetings, events, and workshops, stocked with weaving looms and equipment. A covered patio provides an area for social events and dye workshops, just like this one.
About Anne Beck, the Gathering’s Orchestrator
Anne Beck is an artist whose work is deeply rooted in her internal and external environment, both materially and conceptually. She first encountered mushroom dyes during a demonstration led by Nancy Denison, shortly after moving to Mendocino in 2008. Since, she has gently incorporated color from the world around her into her paintings and drawings. Anne has taught papermaking and printmaking extensively, but the Mushroom Dye Gathering was her first dye workshop, so it was non-hierarchical and rhizomatic, true to the mycelial source material. Anne also serves on the board of the Larry Spring Museum.
About the Larry Spring Museum
The Larry Spring Museum of Common Sense Physics in Fort Bragg, CA, is a DIY museum created by the self-taught experimenter, artist, and outsider curator, Larry Spring. LSM celebrates Larry Spring’s DIY Spirit of Amateur Inquiry as a means to open up his collection to new creative possibilities and imagines itself as a constellation of art and science wonders where community engages through collaborative action.
