spore PRINT

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These two pieces are part of a project I've been contemplating over the past few months. In the name of identifying the mushrooms that I photograph in Assiniboine Forest, I've been collecting samples for spore prints.

I say in the name of, because it's a handy justification, should I be asked what on god's green earth am I doing...but I am more than capable of enjoying the mushrooms without naming them.

So what is it, then? I think...that making spore prints is another way of making images from mushrooms, of letting the mushrooms make images themselves.

But that's just part of it. I also found myself coming home with pockets full of showy bark. And spent willow galls. And seeds in fluted wrappers.

And I was uncommonly happy when I found a set of wooden trays only an inch deep in which to layer all these, well, layers.

So we'll see where this goes. In the meantime, here are a few images that the house drug in.

The feather I found on my front walk. The pine seeds were shed by the cones I mound in a bowl around Christmastime, my only nod to seasonal decorations. The keys I resurrected from a drawer, tucked there after the locks they fit had been lost or broke, because they're such...objects.