A little glimpse of some new work coming for 𝘓𝘪𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮 my solo show in May

More details to come!

Susannah Collins
𝘍𝘶𝘯𝘨𝘪𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮; 𝘤𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘴-𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯
2026
Polyester and cotton thread
95cm x 60cm

#TextileArt #Thread #FibreArt #Fungi #Embroidery #LichenSubscribe #Lichen #Fungi #Textiles #Sewing #Embroidery #FreehandMachineEmbroidery ##FibreArt #Thread #FineArt #Exhibition #ArtExhibition #Nature #ContemporaryArt

I am by no means experienced in woodworking but one of my best friends in Seattle has taught me a little, and thus it's a dormant interest of ours. My friend is now unable to work on much (partly age and infirmity, partly from being forced to move out of roomier housing and into much smaller quarters that permit no significant workspace) and I'm not set up to do much for…well, bad reasons mostly. There's space, there's some heavy shop equipment on hand, but neither the Pnictogen Wing nor our household has had the energy or discipline to make use of the space or equipment. Entropy has a strong hold on our basement.

That having been said: let me relate a woodworking idea that I've just had. It might not be so difficult to try out, though it would be a rather lengthy experiment.

First, let me speak of spalted wood. This is a prized decorative variety of certain hardwoods (mostly light-colored woods such as maple or birch) which have started to become colonized with fungi, and thus developed thin dark stripes in intricate patterns throughout the otherwise unaltered wood (see image). One can create one's own spalted wood, though it's rather a chancy process, by incubating pristine boards of maple or other host wood with fungal spores, such as you might obtain by collecting bracket fungi or wood that's clearly infected with some fungal rot. Periodically you check to see how well the fungi have taken root and whether they've formed attractive patterns of spalting, and then you clean the wood off and bake the wood out to kill off the fungal infection. You might go as far as stabilizing the wood with resin, to make it more reliably workable. Fungal infection of wood starts to soften it, and if the infestation is too far advances the wood becomes too weak and "punky" to be usefully worked.

I think spalted wood is beautiful stuff, especially when it's turned on a lathe or cleverly carved to bring out the spalting patterns. And now suddenly I wonder: could you apply negative space to the spalting of wood, to create interesting designs? Suppose for example that you applied a wood preservative, salicylic acid let's say or zinc salts, selectively to a maple board. You could stencil on letters or shapes, for instance. Then you treat the board with fungal spores to induce spotting. Wouldn't the spalting tend to form around the treated areas?

Lepiota cristata

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Lepiota_cristata.html

Ecology: Saprobic; growing scattered or gregariously, often in disturbed ground areas like paths, ditches, lawns, and so on, but also on the forest floor under hardwoods or conifers; summer and fall; apparently widely distributed in North America. The illustrated and described collections are from Illinois.

Cap: 2-4 cm; convex or obtusely conic at first, becoming broadly bell-shaped or nearly flat in age; dry; bald at first but soon becoming scaly with pinkish brown to reddish brown or brown scales that are usually concentrically arranged; the center typically remaining bald and darker; whitish underneath the scales and toward the margin; the margin sometimes becoming finely lined.

Gills: Free from the stem; close; short-gills frequent; white to buff.

Stem: 3-7 cm long; 2-3 mm thick; more or less equal; bald; fragile; whitish but often becoming pinkish to brownish towards the base; with a fragile, white ring (which may easily disappear) on the upper portion; basal mycelium white.

Flesh: Whitish; not changing when sliced; thin.

Odor and Taste: Taste not distinctive; odor sharply fragrant.

Chemical Reactions: KOH negative on white areas of cap; negative or yellowish on brown areas.

Spore Print: White.

Microscopic Features: Spores 5-8 x 2.5-4 ; mostly shaped like a wedge or bullet, with a flattened bottom (occasionally more or less ellipsoid, or subfusiform); smooth; hyaline in KOH; strongly to weakly dextrinoid; tending to cohere in groups of two or three. Cheilocystidia 25-50 x 7.5-12.5 ; subclavate to clavate; hyaline in KOH; thin-walled. Pleurocystidia absent. Pileipellis (over the disc) a hymeniform layer of clavate to pyriform elements about 15-40 x 7.5-12.5 ; golden to golden brown in KOH. Clamp connections present.

#mushrooms #fungi #mycology #shrooms #mushtodon #sporespondence #floraspondence

Austroboletus subflavidus

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Austroboletus_subflavidus.html

Ecology: Mycorrhizal with oaks; usually appearing in pine-oak woods; growing alone, scattered, or gregariously; summer and fall; distributed from New Jersey to Florida and Texas; also known from the Caribbean and Central America. The illustrated and described collection is from Georgia.

Cap: 6 cm across; convex; tacky; finely velvety; whitish.

Pore Surface: Whitish; not bruising; with 1-2 angular pores per mm; tubes to 1 cm deep.

Stem: 9 cm long; 1.5 cm thick; more or less equal; whitish, stained pale yellow in places; curved at the base; coarsely pocketed-reticulate; basal mycelium white.

Flesh: Whitish overall, but yellow in the stem base; unchanging when sliced.

Odor and Taste: Odor not distinctive; taste reported as bitter.

Microscopic Features: Spores 15-18 x 6.5-8 ; boletoid-fusiform; finely pimply-verrucose; dull golden in KOH. Hymenial cystidia scattered and inconspicuous, scarcely projecting; to 35 x 7.5 m; fusiform; thin-walled; smooth; hyaline in KOH. Pileipellis a collapsing trichoderm of hyaline, smooth elements 5-7.5 wide; terminal cells cylindric, with to subclavate rounded apices.

#mushrooms #fungi #mycology #shrooms #mushtodon #sporespondence #floraspondence

Russula densifolia

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Russula_densifolia.html

Ecology: Mycorrhizal with hardwoods or conifers; growing alone, scattered, gregariously, or in dense troops; summer and fall (also over winter in warmer climates); widely distributed in North America.

Cap: 4-15 cm; broadly convex when young, later flat with a central depression, or shallowly vase-shaped; sticky at first or when wet; more or less smooth, or finely felty to the touch; initially white but soon discoloring to brownish, ashy gray, brown, or blackish; bruising slowly reddish, then blackish; the margin initially somewhat inrolled, not lined or lined faintly and widely; the cap skin peeling easily about halfway to the center.

Gills: Attached or running very slightly down the stem; narrow; close or crowded (sometimes nearly distant); white to cream, eventually yellowish; bruising slowly reddish, then blackish.

Stem: 1.5-9 cm long; 1-3.5 cm thick; white but soon darkening like the cap; bruising reddish, then blackish over the course of as much as half an hour; smooth or finely felty.

Flesh: White; hard; bruising promptly or slowly reddish on exposure, then blackish over the course of as much as half an hour.

Odor and Taste: Odor not distinctive; taste mild or slowly slightly to very acrid.

Chemical Reactions: KOH on cap surface negative. Iron salts on stem surface negative.

Spore Print: White.

Microscopic Features: Spores 7-11 x 6-8.5 ; elliptical to subglobose; with warts to .7 high; connectors usually forming partial or complete reticula. Pileipellis up to 500 thick; occasionally disposed as a single, cutis-like layer but more commonly two layered, with the lower level densely interwoven and cutis-like and the upper level composed of fairly erect elements embedded in a gelatinous matrix; pileocystidia absent.

#mushrooms #fungi #mycology #shrooms #mushtodon #sporespondence #floraspondence

Amanita bisporigera

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Amanita_bisporigera.html

Ecology: Mycorrhizal with oaks, and possibly with other hardwoods; summer and fall; widely distributed and common in eastern North America from Texas to the north woods and the maritime provinces.

Cap: 2.5-10 cm; almost oval, becoming convex, then broadly convex to somewhat bell-shaped or nearly flat in age; bald (very rarely with a volval patch); dry or a little sticky; stark white to ivory, sometimes discoloring towards the center in age--or rarely a little yellowish or pinkish with maturity; the margin not lined.

Gills: Free, or nearly free, from the stem; close or crowded; with frequent short-gills; white.

Stem: 5.5-14 cm long; 0.5-2 cm thick; usually tapering somewhat to apex and flaring to an enlarged base; somewhat shaggy or nearly bald; white; with a persistent, thin, high, skirtlike ring; with a white, sacklike volva encasing the base, which may be underground or broken up.

Flesh: White throughout.

Odor: Not distinctive in young specimens, but often becoming foul and unpleasant (sickly sweet, or reminiscent of rotting meat) with old age.

Spore Print: White.

Chemical Reactions: KOH bright yellow on cap surface.

Microscopic Features: Spores 7-10 x 6-9 ; smooth; globose to subglobose or very broadly ellipsoid; amyloid. Basidia without clamps; 2-spored--or, according to Rod Tulloss (http://www.amanitaceae.org/?Phalloideae+of+North+and+Central+America" TARGET="new possibly 2-spored early in the season and 4-spored as the season progresses. Pileipellis a cutis or ixocutis of hyphae 2-6 wide. Lamellar trama bilateral; subhymenium ramose.

#mushrooms #fungi #mycology #shrooms #mushtodon #sporespondence #floraspondence

Tyromyces fumidiceps

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Tyromyces_fumidiceps.html

Ecology: Saprobic on the deadwood of hardwoods; causing a white rot; annual; growing alone or gregariously; often found along riverbottoms, creeks, and low-lying areas subject to floods; summer and fall; fairly widely distributed east of the Great Plains.

Cap: Usually present and well developed but occasionally present merely as a folded-over edge above a spreading pore surface; up to 6 cm across and 4 cm deep; convex; semicircular to kidney-shaped; velvety to slightly hairy at first, becoming bald; off-white, grayish, smoky gray, brownish, or grayish brown; soft.

Pore Surface: Whitish, becoming yellowish or pale olive in old age or when dried out; not bruising appreciably; with 4-7 angular pores per mm; tubes to 1 cm deep; tube mouths often becoming covered with crystals.

Stem: Absent.

Flesh: White; soft and watery when fresh.

Odor and Taste: Odor fragrant when fresh; taste not distinctive.

Chemical Reactions: KOH negative to yellowish on cap surface and flesh.

Spore Print: White.

Microscopic Features: Spores 2.5-4 x 2-3 ; smooth; ellipsoid to subglobose; hyaline in KOH; inamyloid. Cystidia absent, but occasional fusoid cystidioles present. Hyphal system monomitic, with conspicuous clamp connections; contextual hyphae with frequent short side branches.

#mushrooms #fungi #mycology #shrooms #mushtodon #sporespondence #floraspondence