Mushrooms for Color

 While many in Mendocino may remember the first couple of weeks of 2008 as darkened by a whopper set of storms, over 150 people who participated in the 13th International Fungi & Fibre Symposium will remember it as an illuminating week of experimentation and shared knowledge. The ability to create this event was made possible by numerous, generous donations of many folks in our community. The Symposium committee wishes to acknowledge all the organizations, businesses, and the individuals who gave seed (or spore!) money, housing, food and other goods. Only with graciously donated time and labors of many volunteers, could this week have been such a successful event for experimentation, education, and celebration. Local folks gathered with participants from the Bay Area, the Pacific Northwest, Scandinavia, Spain, Australia and the far reaches of North America to explore the fungi realm of the Mendocino Coast through forays, mushroom identification and mushroom dye experimentation on wool, silk, bamboo, and other unusual fibers, both cellulose and protein.

Paul Stamets, our keynote speaker, addressed Myco-remediation, and on the evening of January 10th, he gave also a public talk, which found 200 community members crowded into Crown Hall. He spoke about the nature and long history of fungi, the magic of mushrooms. There are many ways we can work with fungi: to clean up toxins and oil spills, to declare buildings off limits to termites and ants, and to sequester carbon, so increasingly important as our Earth exhibits already higher temperatures due to global warming. Thank you to all who made this Symposium possible! In two years, the next Symposium will be held in Sweden.

The 13th International Fungi & Fibre Symposium Committee m

Eleanor Adams, Dorothy Beebee, Nancy Denison, Vicki Fraser, Karen Inwood, Lolli Jacobsen, Debra Scott, Janferie Stone, Emily Whittlesey & Jackie Wollenberg

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Photo courtesy of © David Russell, Mendocino, CA.