![Oregon Mushroom Stories Interview
I was recently interviewed by Lola Miholland for Oregon Mushroom Stories. Lola Milholland has worked for the Portland-based nonprofit Ecotrust and is currently assistant editor of its free quarterly magazine Edible Portland, which tells stories about the food and farming culture of Oregon and southwest Washington. (Find a free copy at the locations listed here or subscribe here.)
Lola was awarded a Regional Arts and Culture Council grant to create four short videos focused on local mushroom foragers and cultivators, and will put together a series of events and installations beginning in November 2012. For more information on her project visit Oregon Mushroom Stories.
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 oil paint and kiln-formed glass.
I asked Emily a few questions to learn more about her process and why mushrooms have become one of her materials and icons. – Lola Milholland
Q. Can you tell me a little bit about your recent mushroom artworks? How did you make them, and did you have specific mushroom species in mind?
A. My most recent show, Of Other Spaces, featured several sculptural pieces based on the life cycle of the Coprinopsis atramentaria or “Ink Cap” mushroom. Coprinopsis atramentaria, like other coprinoid mushrooms, have gills that liquefy as its spores mature. This causes the mushroom to turn black and decay.
In Portal, I combined the image of mushrooms melting and decaying with the symbol of a fairy ring. [See Portal and the full cycle of decay here.] When mushrooms grow in a circle, it is called a fairy ring. There are at least 60 different mushroom species that grow in these patterns, although to the best of my knowledge Ink Caps are not one of them. In folklore, fairy rings were interpreted as the result of fairies dancing or as gateways to elfin kingdoms. They have also been thought to represent the activity of witches and the devil. In this way Portal was an exploration of both mycology and mythological symbols.
Both Portal and Deliquesce were made with kiln formed cast glass in the Bullseye Glass studio. Each mushroom piece had to be individually cast – first in wax and then in glass. I began by making a basic mold for all the mushrooms by casting the head of a shitake mushroom and then building the stem by hand. Each of the 20 mushrooms in the Portal piece were cast in wax from this original shitake mold and then melted with a heat gun to change the form. I also carved the spores individually into each wax mushroom. The wax mushrooms were then cast in glass using a lost-wax process.
Q. Why mushrooms?
A. Mushrooms are loaded with a long history of foraging, ecological, folkloric, psychedelic, and pop-cultural references. To me they represent the magic of the forest. They appear to pop up over night; they are mysterious; and they play an important role in modern medicine and science.
Q. Are you a mushroom forager? When did you begin and how did you learn?
A. I am a foraging beginner. I recently joined the Oregon Mycological Society to learn more. I was first introduced to the idea of foraging about 10 years ago. I was staying with a friend in rural Pennsylvania. As we were making his family’s annual pot of morel soup, he explained that the mushrooms had come from a group of Pennsylvania Dutch women who would go out morel hunting every year and forage in silence. It was a very select and secretive group of women. This tradition and ritual secrecy around mushroom hunting stuck with me.
Foraging again reappeared in my life a couple years ago when I was visiting Finland with my mother. In Finland it is part of your right as a citizen to forage in the forest. This is called “jokamiehenoikeus“, which literally translates to “every man’s rights.”
While we were there, we stayed with a couple in Suomussalmi, a very remote reindeer-herding region on the border of Russia. Our host, Helena, made almost everything from foraged food. You would be walking with her in the woods and all of a sudden she would stop and point out some mushrooms or berries she was going to bring back for dinner.
Q. How does foraging play into your life and artwork?
A. I am still a mushroom foraging beginner but I have begun foraging wild edible plants. The more I learn about the specific wildlife in the area I live in, the more it enriches my day-to-day experiences.
Foraging and plant identification has affected my work – it has made me focus more on microcosms and hone in on details. Previously my artwork focused on the environment as a whole – I created large installations aimed at eliciting a physical response from the viewer and commenting on our culturally created vision of the natural world. Now after learning more about individual plant species I have begun making work where plant life and geological formations take on their own personas and command space.
Q. What are you working on now?
A. In my studio I am continuing my investigation into mycology, microcosms, and alchemical relationships using materials such as glass and porcelain. I am also preparing for two shows. The first show is a collaborative naturalistic installation at SOIL Gallery in Seattle, Washington, with artists Anthony Sonnenberg and Carolyn Hopkins. The exhibition is called “Sticks and Stones” and opens on July 5, 2012. The second is a group exhibition titled “Extra Painterly Discourse” and opens on July 14, 2012, at Swarm Gallery in Oakland, California.
[Through May 2012, Emily’s pieces Deliquesce and Portal are on display at Bullseye Gallery, 300 NW 13th Avenue, Portland, OR 97209.
Read the interview online here: Oregon Mushroom Stories](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3thybtcN81qcawkgo1_250.jpg)
Oregon Mushroom Stories Interview
I was recently interviewed by Lola Miholland for Oregon Mushroom Stories. Lola Milholland has worked for the Portland-based nonprofit Ecotrust and is currently assistant editor of its free quarterly magazine Edible Portland, which tells stories about the food and farming culture of Oregon and southwest Washington. (Find a free copy at the locations listed here or subscribe here.)
Lola was awarded a Regional Arts and Culture Council grant to create four short videos focused on local mushroom foragers and cultivators, and will put together a series of events and installations beginning in November 2012. For more information on her project visit Oregon Mushroom Stories.
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 oil paint and kiln-formed glass.
I asked Emily a few questions to learn more about her process and why mushrooms have become one of her materials and icons. – Lola Milholland
Q. Can you tell me a little bit about your recent mushroom artworks? How did you make them, and did you have specific mushroom species in mind?
A. My most recent show, Of Other Spaces, featured several sculptural pieces based on the life cycle of the Coprinopsis atramentaria or “Ink Cap” mushroom. Coprinopsis atramentaria, like other coprinoid mushrooms, have gills that liquefy as its spores mature. This causes the mushroom to turn black and decay.
In Portal, I combined the image of mushrooms melting and decaying with the symbol of a fairy ring. [See Portal and the full cycle of decay here.] When mushrooms grow in a circle, it is called a fairy ring. There are at least 60 different mushroom species that grow in these patterns, although to the best of my knowledge Ink Caps are not one of them. In folklore, fairy rings were interpreted as the result of fairies dancing or as gateways to elfin kingdoms. They have also been thought to represent the activity of witches and the devil. In this way Portal was an exploration of both mycology and mythological symbols.
Both Portal and Deliquesce were made with kiln formed cast glass in the Bullseye Glass studio. Each mushroom piece had to be individually cast – first in wax and then in glass. I began by making a basic mold for all the mushrooms by casting the head of a shitake mushroom and then building the stem by hand. Each of the 20 mushrooms in the Portal piece were cast in wax from this original shitake mold and then melted with a heat gun to change the form. I also carved the spores individually into each wax mushroom. The wax mushrooms were then cast in glass using a lost-wax process.
Q. Why mushrooms?
A. Mushrooms are loaded with a long history of foraging, ecological, folkloric, psychedelic, and pop-cultural references. To me they represent the magic of the forest. They appear to pop up over night; they are mysterious; and they play an important role in modern medicine and science.
Q. Are you a mushroom forager? When did you begin and how did you learn?
A. I am a foraging beginner. I recently joined the Oregon Mycological Society to learn more. I was first introduced to the idea of foraging about 10 years ago. I was staying with a friend in rural Pennsylvania. As we were making his family’s annual pot of morel soup, he explained that the mushrooms had come from a group of Pennsylvania Dutch women who would go out morel hunting every year and forage in silence. It was a very select and secretive group of women. This tradition and ritual secrecy around mushroom hunting stuck with me.
Foraging again reappeared in my life a couple years ago when I was visiting Finland with my mother. In Finland it is part of your right as a citizen to forage in the forest. This is called “jokamiehenoikeus“, which literally translates to “every man’s rights.”
While we were there, we stayed with a couple in Suomussalmi, a very remote reindeer-herding region on the border of Russia. Our host, Helena, made almost everything from foraged food. You would be walking with her in the woods and all of a sudden she would stop and point out some mushrooms or berries she was going to bring back for dinner.
Q. How does foraging play into your life and artwork?
A. I am still a mushroom foraging beginner but I have begun foraging wild edible plants. The more I learn about the specific wildlife in the area I live in, the more it enriches my day-to-day experiences.
Foraging and plant identification has affected my work – it has made me focus more on microcosms and hone in on details. Previously my artwork focused on the environment as a whole – I created large installations aimed at eliciting a physical response from the viewer and commenting on our culturally created vision of the natural world. Now after learning more about individual plant species I have begun making work where plant life and geological formations take on their own personas and command space.
Q. What are you working on now?
A. In my studio I am continuing my investigation into mycology, microcosms, and alchemical relationships using materials such as glass and porcelain. I am also preparing for two shows. The first show is a collaborative naturalistic installation at SOIL Gallery in Seattle, Washington, with artists Anthony Sonnenberg and Carolyn Hopkins. The exhibition is called “Sticks and Stones” and opens on July 5, 2012. The second is a group exhibition titled “Extra Painterly Discourse” and opens on July 14, 2012, at Swarm Gallery in Oakland, California.
[Through May 2012, Emily’s pieces Deliquesce and Portal are on display at Bullseye Gallery, 300 NW 13th Avenue, Portland, OR 97209.
Read the interview online here: Oregon Mushroom Stories
![Katharine Morales writes and amazing preview of Michael Endo’s and my show for the Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet.
Michel Foucault outlined a theory of history which places the emphasis of human experience not on the passage of time but on our physical place and the spaces around us. In Foucault’s 1967 lecture “Of Other Spaces,” he talked about how the world hovers and bounces between spaces either “sacred or profane,” and “protected or exposed.” There are “urban places and rural places” and cosmologically speaking, “celestial” versus “terrestrial.” What does this mean for two mixed media artists collaborating in the same space? Bullseye Gallery in Portland, Oregon has the answer in the form of a duo exhibition presenting the work of up-and-coming collaborating duo Michael Endo and Emily Nachison. Their exhibition, which opens this evening, is named for Foucault’s posthumously published lecture of the same name. The pair’s work “explores mythmaking through the accumulation of meaning and history,” according to Endo’s website. The artists will be available to discuss the influence of this philosophy among other things at the Bullseye Gallery Artists Talk Sunday, April 15th at 2 pm (entry is free, but reservations are required for attendance).
Endo and Nachison work in a variety of mediums from oil on linen, wool felt and yarn, cast glass and the kiln formed glass for which Bullseye Gallery is known. Both artists are based in Portland, and were awarded the Regional Arts and Culture Council Grant from the city just last year. In addition, they each earned their Master’s Degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, Endo in painting and Nachison in fibers. However, the similarities end with their imagery. Much of Nachison’s work plays with dreamy and quirky worlds, reminiscent of spending summer hours in your best friend’s backyard playing “Little House on the Prairie.” Every bit as realistic as real life, and sometimes more so, the boring parts are omitted on a whim, and small embellishments added to suit the scene. Toadstools created out of drippy, bright red glass as in Deliquesce can be seen alongside larger than life glass sculpture, Fairytale Trees. The twin trees sprout spindly November branches sparsely adorned with glowing white orbs teetering in the fragile tops. The effect is sad and precious, like a child’s missing tooth or a single lost mitten.
In contrast, Endo often creates landscapes and still life in conventional mediums based on unconventional subject matter. His gallery on the Cranbrook Academy of Art website depicts two haunting scenes, the first of which comes across like a portrait – it shows an abandoned mattress in a swamp. The second are hunters celebrating their kill in a dusky forest – the kill of a man. For Of Other Spaces,he works with kiln formed glass in minimal and spooky tones, as in the black and white Telegraph and Olympic. The Bullseye Gallery News categorizes this work as a, “reference [to] spaces that are on the outskirts or in the margins of our built world.”
How these artists will marry their seemingly disparate aesthetic worlds remains to be seen by Portlanders with gallery access. It seems the Foucault theory of Heterotopia – places within society that simultaneously mirror and invert the known ethos — is a natural and thoughtful through line for their work. This video on the Bullseye Gallery website gives insight into the real life imagery that provided much of the inspiration for the exhibition. Fairy tales blend with the all too real world, black ink is etched into smooth glass, and the viewer is left to wonder, is this dark? is this hopeful? and where am I? Foucault answers, “From the standpoint of the mirror…I see myself where I am not.”
—Katharine Morales
Visit: The Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0buz94HJ21qcawkgo1_1280.jpg)
