obsession : mushrooms
It's common to have obsessions as an artist. It can be a color, a technique, a subject, or a location, and it completely preoccupies your thoughts. Making art about that obsession is a satisfying and productive way to lean into it, process it and integrate it.
I have only recently realized that my obsessions are cyclical. It makes sense. Before I went to art school, I just liked things. I might draw them more in my journal, but other than that, there was no record of that obsession. I didn't notice or document it, nor did I have a years-long history of social media posts to see topics repeat themselves. Now I do.
Now that I see these cycles, I want to start connecting what I have made and what I am making today. I don't know why yet, but I hope that by creating space to notice, I will better understand why later.
So to kick off this Obsessions series, let's start with Mushrooms.
In 2016, I made wax molds of fruits and vegetables. I cut them into hexagons and studied the patterns and textures without the color or shape I was used to seeing them in. The gills of portabello mushrooms were some of the most fascinating for me. Nothing ever came of this project. Well, I take that back. This is what came of that project.
In 2018, when I started my year of the plastic journey, I started researching if there were any potential solutions to our excess single-use plastic waste problems. I found an article about some hope in different kinds of fungi. Not only did this spark a solarpunk daydream that I can return to every time learning about the world's waste problems gets me down, but it also inspired me to make my plastic sculptures look like mushrooms.
In 2020 I was obsessed with contained ecosystems. I have yet to bring this line of exploration into the physical world; I devoted much time learning about contained ecosystems, growing mushrooms, crystals, and different quick-growing plants. I wanted to grow jewelry.
I don't have a conclusion for today's collection. I can tell you what other obsessions are in line to get their posts though: columnar basalt, crystals, microscopic plants, microscopic images of plants, moths, and seeds. There are probably more. These are just off the top of my head