This week I’ve been researching and thinking about Mycelium. It might be because I’m moving into a new apartment and I love building my own furniture but I can’t stop thinking about making an end table or lamp out of it.
With that in mind, I started my research. I think that it’s fascinating that I can grow bricks or other forms and fuse them together with further growth. I also think it’s a beautiful thought that my piece can be composted, is lightweight, and does not rely on the production of new materials.
While looking for inspiration I found these two videos. I do not have access to a huge oven so I’ll have to start small.
I also continued to work on my Scoby Cyanotype process experiment. Something really interesting happened immediately after coating the Scoby with the cyanotype solution it reacted and turned the deep blue that typically happens only after exposure. Below are two images of the exposure process you can see how the Scobys are blue while the paper is green, which is typical of the process. The only thing that I can think of is the acidy in the Scoby might have made the chemical react prematurely. Unforchentely, since it reacted I wasn’t able to print a silhouette on it. It did dye the Scoby a beautiful blue. Below the exposure images are images of the washing and re-drying processes. I don’t think this is a failure just a shift in the expected outcome. I would like to test this idea on other materials that we work with.
