What's next for the Fungi Hunt?

What goes up must come down, and in June that became true for the Lost Creek Fungi Hunt.

After 12 months on the Lost Creek Trail near Chatfield, MN, this outdoor public art installation has reached it’s conclusion. In mid-June, I made a final through-hike of the 5.5 mile trail, pulling staples, collecting signs, and packing up the crochet mushrooms. In just 3 sweaty hours, the trail was back to its original condition.

False Turkey Tail

It was always my plan for the Lost Creek Fungi Hunt to be temporary. Fiber art is not meant to last forever, certainly not when exposed to the elements. Colors fade, critters nibble, and I had a funny feeling that bugs and mold might be a factor. All of this turned out to be true.

But nature’s wear and tear were part of the evolution of this art project. Organic mushrooms are also prone to breaking down over time. They discolor with algae, shrivel up and turn black with age, or are snacked on by bugs and a few wild animals. In their own way, my crochet mushrooms reflected that natural cycle - complete with algae and bugs!

Turkey Tail

This Turkey Tail had wires threaded through it to help it hold its shape - these started to rust early on and discolored the yarn. I love the effect it created.

Northern Tooth

My Northern Tooth was the last piece to go up, just before the big rains in June of 2024. Since that initial downpour, it’s been steadily growing algae and turning greener and greener. When I took it down, I could see the clear distinction between the exposed algae-stained outer edges and the off-white areas that were sandwiched next to each other and did not provide an environment for algae/mold to grow.

The art looked great on the trees, but getting up close with my pliers and handling them all made it clear that their time outdoors has rendered them unusable for anything else. They stink of musty, dusty mold and are dirty enough I wished I had brought gloves to handle a few of them.

Northern Tooth

Without the staples, a few started to completely fall apart. The Dryad’s Saddle, which I’d already replaced once, were pretty much toast, and my favorite of the two Chicken of the Woods was savaged by squirrels sometime in May and was hanging in tatters when I found it.

I completed this project on a shoestring budget of $450, including a generous donation from the Bluff Country Hiking Club (who maintain the trail) and a micro-grant from international organization Fiber Art Now. But I couldn’t have done it without the generosity and partnership of the landowners whose property the trail crosses. My promise to them when I first pitched this project was that after one year, I would remove all traces of the project and leave as minimal an impact on the health of their trees as possible.

To that end, all my mushrooms were placed on dead trees - stapling damp yarn to a live tree would have been just asking for a bacterial or virus infection to swoop in and take out the tree. And during my de-install, my assistant and I carefully collected and removed every rusty staple, every stripped-out screw, every wooden sign, and even dug up the posts for my trailhead signs.

Artist's Conk

The Lost Creek Fungi Hunt is gone, like it was never there at all.

But that’s not the end of this project! I’m bringing it back to life for one more hurrah at the end of the summer, this time as a fine art exhibition.

The Lost Creek Fungi Hunt (in Exhibition) is a retrospective look at this yearlong project. It includes high-quality photographs which showcase the mushrooms and the trail in all four seasons. And although the original mushrooms are no longer suitable for display, I’m creating new models which will be displayed on bark slabs so visitors can once again interact with the mushrooms.

Shout out to photographer Rick Swanson for professionally framing and matting all my photos!

This exhibition will be displayed at the Chatfield Center for the Arts in the 1916 Gallery from August 1 to September 17. The building is air-conditioned (yay!) and fully ADA compliant (no stairs!!) so that anyone and everyone can experience the Lost Creek Fungi Hunt, regardless of their outdoorsy-ness and hiking ability.

Admission to the gallery is free, and we will be having an artist reception on August 1 from 5-6:30 PM.

Please join me!