I draw, paint and felt them, regularly spend hours admiring fungi photography, purchase every fungi related object I come across to add to my ever growing collection and always keep my fungi guidebook beside me at work incase, I should ever need to make an emergency identification.
Earlier this week, by pure chance, I stumbled across an amazing set of 'realistic stress ball' fungi online. After squealing with excitement for 30 minutes and explaining in detail about why I need them and how they will change my life, I finally persuaded my other half to buy them for me. As he grudgingly completed the transaction, his parting comment to me was, "there is something wrong with you". This set me to thinking about my fungi fascination and it's potential causes.
I've narrowed it down to three possible explanations:- I am weird!!!!!
- The effect of one particular episode of 'The X Files' -yes, I'm a huge fan of that too- upon my impressionable young mind. Mulder and Scully suffered hallucinations from mushroom spores and narrowly escaped being slowly digested by a massive fungi organism. These mile long fungi actually exist.
- Being a vegetarian, I eat vast (and possibly unhealthy) quantities of Quorn -a product made from Mycoprotiens- fungi. After 16 years of consumption, I could well be part mushroom now.
Luckily, I have a friend (yes a real human one) who also loves fungi and was kind enough to take me out foraging the other week. We scoured the grass atop a blustery mountain and were rewarded with the discovery of several lovely varieties of wax cap and puffball fungi. I'd hoped to return home some good photographs, but the odds were against me with the gusty wind, my wobbly hands and the local sheep eyeballing us.
I can't wait to go out fungi hunting again this autumn, but until then, I've satisfied my mushroom madness with several fungi inspired creative projects.
These are a few of the acceptable photos taken on our outing.
I pulled out my neglected watercolours thinking it would be a therapeutic experience to paint….wrong there!
A lady mushroom…don't ask.
An attempt at sculpting with polymer clay.
A revisit to some of my favourite old drawings :D
All images copyright HKJ
