As is traditional, I am very behind with this blog. Below is an email I sent to my mentor for this project Fiona MacDonald on 16th October.
Hi Fiona,
Thank you so much for your edits of the gathering blurb. I attach the current version. I’ve just put it out to my friends and activist networks – tickets will go on general sale on 24th October. Everyone I’ve mentioned it to says they want to come, so I’m reasonably confident it will sell out.
So I wanted to give you an update, and also use this email as a blog post! Which makes sense to me, seeing as the bursary is for the mentoring and this will give a bit of an insight into the mentoring process. But it does mean I’m writing in a slightly more self-conscious style than I might otherwise…
So since we spoke, things have changed again. I marked out a floorspace roughly equivalent to what I will have in the gallery, and the plan of Sinshan won’t fit or will have to be massively truncated, ie with far fewer structures. (see attached)
I also wasn’t happy with the way the different mushrooms were mapping onto the elements of the town – houses, barns, stores, power, well, pump. It felt a bit contrived. But the main problem was the floor area that I have available, which is approx 2.6 x 1.6 metres if we use the floor, around 3.1 x 2.1 if we build out into the double height space.
And – when I placed some of the growing mycelium on the floor area, I really liked the look of them on a pale plain surface and against the coloured gaffer tape. I don’t want the work to look like a nature display in a gallery, and I think this adds an interesting tension between the “natural” elements and the “synthetic” ones. So that also made me rethink diagrammatic aspect, and I went back to a really interesting diagram (see attached) in a paper co-authored by Richard Bardgett, one of the soil scientists that I’ve been talking to, comparing the stability of bacterial and fungal networks under drought (fungal communities are more stable!). It only has nine elements, which is a lot more manageable, and a whole lot of interconnections, which is really pertinent to my whole investigation into mutual benefit within a complex community; one of the things that’s come up repeatedly in my research is that mycorrhizal associations don’t exist in isolation. I can use coloured gaffer or fluorescent pencils for the lines – I’m really interested in the contrast between fluorescent colours and the colours of the fungus.
Oh and also – I was looking at a tempera painting and I think the colours and texture of tempera potentially work really well with the fungus. Placing the fungus on a painting also means I should get spores dropping onto the painting. However I’m not sure how will this will work with the relationship lines – but I could use this for some of the fungus that doesn’t make it onto the main installation.
However…I don’t actually understand all the terms on the diagram, so I’m currently waiting to hear back from Richard on this. Once I can more accurately understand the diagram, I can work out how the fungal varieties that I’m working with map onto it.
So the fungus update is:
- Elm oyster – i have some spawn in the fridge, it needs inoculating.
- Enoki – my tests are only just showing signs of mycelium. I am optimistic that they will fruit in time for the preview.
- Grey oyster mushrooms – I am setting a new lot off next week, to fruit at the preview.
- Indian oyster – this is a fast-growing oyster, I plan to inoculate it next week.
- Pink oysters – as above.
- Yellow and white oysters – I want them! Adrian Ogden supplies these, says it takes 3 weeks to colonisation, so if they arrive this week there’s just about enough time to get them colonised for the preview (which is 30 days away). NB even if they’re not fruiting the colonised mycelium looks great.
- King Stropharia – I have some spawn in the fridge, will give it a go. Adrian says this is very hard to fruit indoors – but if I get good colonisation then that is enough. I’ve also ordered some from him. And if they do fruit, they’ll look fantastic.
- Lion’s Mane – good colonisation and possibly the start of pinning – I’m getting some quite lovely coral-type formations emerging from the mycelium – I’ve sent some images over to Adrian Ogden for clarification
- Morels – these have contaminated with lots of green mould, apart from a small amount that I put in a tumbler, which has got good colonisation. Adrian says morels aren’t able to fight off competitors in the way that other fungus can, and so growing them in non-sterile conditions is highly likely to result in contamination. It’s disappointing though, as these are the only actual mycorrhizal fungus that I’m growing. however all is not lost on the mycorrhizal front – I’m going to plant some of the non-contaminated morel with some saplings, in the hope that it’s the start of a beautiful long-term relationship.
- P. stipticus is still glowing away in my bedroom. I am going to grow on some more. One of the most important things mycorrhizal fungus does is make phosphorus available to plants, so I am thinking of using P. stipticus to represent phosphorus. Like phosphorus, p. stipticus gives off light because of a chemical reaction.
- Reishi – fantastic colonisation, no sign of mushroom formation yet. As far as I can make out, these are quite slow growing and long lasting, so I am optimistic that there will be reishi at the preview. It looks good in any case. (see attached)
- Shaggy inkcap – this is now fully colonised. There is just about enough time to set a new batch off and have it colonised in time for the show. However I am a bit unsure as to how suitable it is – apparently they don’t last long, and deliquesce – which sounds great but messy.
- White elf – I have some spawn in the fridge – need to do a bit of research on growing time.
So there are 13 different types of mushroom…there is some redundancy in the system! But I note that I have gone way overboard, and I could have made things a lot easier for myself by just concentrating on one species – or at any rate, fewer than 13! This is partly a consequence of wanting to find out which mushroooms would fruit in time, partly because I had the idea of making paint from the spores, and partly my own tendency to get overexcited and take on too much.
But I’m happy with the soil ecology diagram as a basis for the installation. It brings it back to earth and soil.
A final (?) element is to make knitted sleeves for some of the fungus. There are logistical things to consider – will the copper oxidise? (Possibly not, as I’m using enameled copper, and a test piece that’s been sat in water for a week isn’t showing any signs of verdigris). Will this add contaminants? (I’ve got isopropyl alcohol aerosols to spray them with, and am planning to do a knitted and non-knitted batch for each fungus). Will I get any knitted up before I do the inoculation? (Not at this rate, because…)…what am I actually knitting???
The idea is that each sleeve relates either to a particular element, or to the idea of mutual aid. I am looking for small quotes that I can knit into the fabric. Because I’m using wire and cotton, I think the words are more likely to look like beautiful abstract calligraphy than actual words. I haven’t yet found a really good quote, so I am going to go back to some notes I took from The Dispossessed a couple of years ago (I definitely want Ursula to be in the piece somehow!) I’ll also have another trawl through Always Coming Home.
(see attached for test piece, no words on it though)
I feel reasonably confident I can knit nine sleeves. I did some test knitting last week and the copper wire at first knitted up perfectly and then started missing stitches, so I may have to hand select every row – slow but doable. I’ve also bought some blue and green copper wire -very exciting, and appropriate to the spectrum lines for phosphorus.
I also mentioned Gass’s idea of building out over the double height space. I think this could really work – it means that as people go down the stairs, they will get a real eye-level view of that part of the installation. I’ve talked to Gass some more about it, and the possibility of allowing people to walk around three sides and finding a way to block off the edge so that they can’t fall off. This would also make a dark space available below where I can put the P. stipticus/phosphorus.
So the next steps are:
Shaggy Inkcap – shock it.
Plant sapling and morel spawn
Get info from Ann Miller and Adrian Ogden. Big question – can I hold fruiting back by delaying shock? Or will this be detrimental?
Check growing times for stropharia, elm oyster, white elf
Find quotes
Do swatches with words
Understand soil diagram – ring Richard
Assign a fungus or plant to each element
Plan a sleeve for each element
Make sleeves
And the timetable for inoculation is:
asap – Lion’s Mane (on order)
asap – white oysters (on order)
asap – yellow oysters (on order)
asap – King stropharia
P. stipticus – now to 5th Nov
Grey oysters – 20-22 October
Indian oysters – 22 October
Pink oysters – 22nd October
Morel – 25th October
Reishi – by 1st Nov (on order)
Shaggy Inkcap – now! (not yet on order…)
??? – Elm oyster
??? – White elf
Phew! Wish I had another month or two…
So, I’m glad I’ve reduced the plan from 50 elements to 9. However I still have too many species on the go – would welcome some input into this, or guidance on prioritisation – I’m pretty confident that not all the mushrooms I grow will make it into the show, on one hand I think it’s good to have some redundancy and backup in case things don’t work, on the other I am making a LOT of work for myself..if I inoculate six lots on Monday, that is basically the whole day. And I do want to have some more knitting to show you on Wednesday!
mycelially yours,
Jane
PS where I’m growing on straw, some of the straw has germinated and I’m getting a mini-meadow in a bag!
