The Mushies: A Family Portrait
Jenny Dowd
Earlier this year I was invited to be a featured artist at ART321 in Casper, WY. The theme for the July show was Mushrooms… I thought for awhile about this, mushrooms don’t always show up in my work but what a fun prompt.
I started mulling over some shadowbox ideas, things that would combine ceramic elements with drawings. A bit of a theme started to emerge as I found a bunch of random frames at a thrift store and imagined mushroom portraits in them. I decided to call my body of work “The Mushies: A Family Portrait.” They were coming together and had such personality. (Mushies came from watching an Australian cooking show, the contestants were calling mushroooms mushies, and that is now what they are called in my house.)
There are 3 sections to this work: shadow boxes, drawings, and garden mushrooms. At the very end is my artist statement for this work. Check it all out here, or in person if you happen to be in Casper, WY this July! The show is up until July 31st, with many, many artists represented.
Shadowboxes (click on the image for a larger image to pop up)
The old mushroom swing
For a brief while the old mushroom swing was the place to be. The old mushroom offered the perfect amount of overhang for a shady and quiet afternoon swinging time away. No one knew if it was installed or if the mushroom just silently grew the swing.
Mushroom picnic
The lonely mushroom was looking for company, and laid out the most enticing of picnics it could imagine. Soon there will be laughter and conversation and the mushroom simply could not wait.
Secret club house
Climb the ladder, pull back the curtain, oh what a view! Has this been here forever or just for a moment?
How did you get up there?
The slugs constantly pulled pranks on each other, and the mushrooms obliged. Or perhaps they were annoyed.
A foraging horror story
Every spring the morels got a kick out of telling the tiny new mushrooms all about The Horrors of the Forage.
Nighttime antics
Every evening the spiders would bounce across the mushrooms. The first time was always scary, but after that the spiders would jump higher and higher. The mushrooms secretly loved the attention.
Drawings: A mix of watercolor and ink
What’s inside?
Shown as a video, since the quick photo I took is not great.
While drawing the bookshelves I realized the best accompaniment for books and comfy pillows, is tea pots and mugs. The Fayetteville Tea House became an inspiration, it is the dreamiest little spot in Fayetteville, with amazing teas and a wall of mugs that you get to choose from. It is one of my favorite places.
Garden Mushrooms
This one started several years ago…
In 2003 I participated in an outdoor sculpture exhibition at a park in Jefferson City, MO. I made stack and stacks of these white clay mushrooms and after the show closed gave them to friends and family to put in their gardens. The first 2 images are from the exhibition in the park. The 3 following photos are from my parent’s garden 20 years later. I love how they have weathered over the years, this inspired new mushrooms just waiting to be added to plant pots and gardens.
I posed these in my garden and my dad’s garden:
After a very wet spring there have been plenty of mushies popping up in my garden for inspiration:
The Mushies: A Family Portrait
The mysterious mushroom, it pops up in the middle of the night, in the garden, near a tree, sprouting out of a window frame. Entire fairy rings suddenly appear, tucked into the woods or plain as day right in the front yard. Just poof! What goes on under the ground to form these alien shapes, soft, inviting, delicious or sometimes deadly? Or better yet, what happens once they are above ground? How do they interact with each other as well as the insects and plants they find themselves among. They must talk to each other, spreading gossip and stories, perhaps they offer themselves up for shelter. A wide mushroom must see itself a bit like the sturdy sheltering oak. Overseeing their domain with a swing, offering the perfect refuge for a picnic, or even the get-away tree... er, mushroom house complete with a ladder entrance. The Mushies is a playful look at the varied family of mushrooms, their personalities and quirks, a desire to be helpful, silly, annoyed, and above all, to be secretive and mysterious.