Mushroom art of all species, from the visual to spoken sorts and from scientific to flat-out fantastical, will be popping up indoors and out all over Telluride this week during the 44th annual Telluride Mushroom Festival, Aug. 14-18.
Screen-printed T-shirts and silk screened posters, traditionally-framed photographs, sculpture, poetry, and — lest we forget — the crazy, creative costumes that appear during the Telluride Mushroom Festival (TMF) parade on Saturday afternoon are all connected to the world of funga and are sprouting around town already.
On display in the Daniel Tucker Gallery at Ah Haa School for the Arts are Riitta Ikonen’s collaborations with sister artists Karoline Hjorth, Anni Collinge, Anja Schaffner and Annie Koponen. The show is a collection of works from the past 18 years that “aims to question our role and responsibilities with other lively beings,” according to the Ah Haa exhibition web page.
“This work focuses on the importance of being,” Ikonen told the Daily Planet. “We have a tendency to go out and do, to execute. How about going out and just being, observing, taking it all in and being less in the protagonist seat?”
Photographs in the series show humans as part of the landscape, dressed as stinkhorn mushrooms, for example, or immersed in mushroom-dotted moss, tree parts and sink mires.
Ikonen said that she and Hjorth will be photographing and interviewing locally for the third book in the “Eyes as Big as Plates” series, which will feature San Miguel County’s Art Goodtimes, TMF Director Britt Bunyard, Founding Director of the Fungi Foundation Giuliana Furci, and, hopefully, Science by Design, LLC, Founder Lauren Czaplicki.
“Working with Guiliana is a dream coming true,” Ikonen said. “She is causing huge international change around her coined term ‘Funga,’ as in Flora, Fauna, Funga.”
With Czaplicki, Ikonen said, they’ll be tying in to the University of Oslo’s research project titled “Anthropogenic Soils,” where scientists and artists are collaborating on new works.
Early in the week, watch for giant mushroom sculptures to start popping up around town when artist Stephanie Keil begins installing her assemblage and found object art. A giant (literally) bolete will be instated at the Micheal D. Palm Theatre.
“It will be a great location for selfies,” said TMF Esthetics Director Daiva Chesonis, who will be helping Keil set up her sculptures and generally acting as consultant for the beauty of the ephemeral TMF “kin-dom” of fungi.
Keil, currently a research library assistant at the Missouri Botanical Garden and president of the Missouri Mycological Society, uses fabric, steel, and other materials to create Alice-in-Wonderland-scapes of mushrooms.
Four of Keil’s pieces will be up for auction during the festival. The auction will be offered on a to-be-announced digital platform, allowing anyone to bid — even those unable to attend the festival in person.
Not interested in a new sculpture for your front walkway?
Wearable art in the form of limited edition silkscreen printed T-shirts will be available from mushroom and forest acolyte artist Chris Adams, creator of the Mushroom Tarot and TMF T-shirts, among other works.
Adams, who lives in Corvallis, Oregon, draws his images by hand, with pencil, before digitizing them, adding color and then creating screen print stencils. His images weave scientific detail together with skate-punk culture and ‘60s and ‘70s counterculture inspiration. He has been studying fungi deeply since 2009 when he got into mushroom taxonomy and foraging.
“Mushrooms are such an epic kin-dom in a forest system and they help us to understand how everything is connected,” Adams said.
Adams hand printed 650 T-shirts and 150 posters for TMF this year. The T-shirts alone took about 60 hours of work to print, he explained. Adams’ booth will be set up next to the main tent. He will be teaching a drawing class at Ah Haa on Tuesday, Aug. 13.
Ah Haa has classes scheduled with artists and chefs throughout the festival week.
On Friday at 8:30 p.m., a flourish of poets and rappers takes the stage at the Sheridan Opera House for the “MycoLuscious MycoLicious Mycological Poetry Show” with Art Goodtimes and Friends.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer will co-emcee with Goodtimes.
On Thursday afternoon, Goodtimes will host Open Myc from 3-5 p.m. at the Telluride Historical Museum amphitheater. It is free and open to all.
Saturday afternoon is everyone’s chance to help create a walking mushroom troop for the TMF parade. Ikonen offers a costume workshop for paraders who haven’t had time to gather a costume together or who are stumped as to what to do.
“I’ve been furiously shopping for materials,” Ikonen said last week. She’ll be working with co-artists Ben Kinsley and Jessica Langley, adding in materials from the Free Box, and helping visitors sprout colorful wearable art.
Of course, there are also plenty of vendors at TMF, offering everything from snacks and mushroom kits to artistic, funga-“inspored”clothing and jewelry.
In addition to the arts offerings, events include forays and mushroom ID sessions, hands-on demonstrations and lectures with well-known experts from around the world.
For more information, please visit 44thannualtelluridemushroom.sched.com/.
