Sofia Klimkowski Arango, Fiber, 2025
Project Overview
Home Base
Red Reishi Mycelium
17″ x 17.5″ x 1″
2024
I created two home base plates out of mycelium in this project. One consisting entirely of Red Reishi (first image below), and one made up of a mix of Ecovative Oyster and Red Reishi (second image below). I created the exterior form to resemble a home base plate from a baseball game. The interior cut out is the outline of the state South Carolina. I made this piece to find a way to navigate home, a symbology that directs the viewer to consider being a traveler/player and what they consider to be their center point to return to.
Process
First I made a viable substrate for my mycelium to grow in. I used wood pellets with oat bran and placed it in a sealed plastic bag with a filter and autoclaved my bag. I did this all on 11/13/2024. On 11/15/2025, I added in my mycelium substrate- 1 liter of Red Reishi- and then resealed my bag and placed the bag full of inoculated materials into the incubator (initial growth). I let this grow until 11/23/2024. I was concerned that these small yellow spots were mold growths, but proceeded with stuffing my mold with red reishi on 11/23/2024. (it did not end up being mold)
I created my mold for my mycelium to grow in. I 3D printed my form in four different parts and duct taped them together on the back/flat side of the pieces. I then used the vacuum sealer and plastic to make a negative of my 3D prints and used baby powder on my 3D print to prevent my mold sticking to the positive. I had some difficulties in making this as the detailed elements of the interior shape resulted in the plastic either suctioning too quickly and making a hole or not grabbing enough into the form to create a proper impression. I ended up puffing up my plastic for a few seconds on the vacuum sealer, pressing down with a stick in these specific problems areas, and then hitting the vacuum button. This pre stretching allowed the metal to mold to the form without moving too drastically and popping.
Once I had my mold created, I took it to the lab where I washed it with soap and water to get off the residual powder. Once visibly free of power, I sterilized my plastic mold with isopropyl alcohol and a paper towel. I then placed my mold into the UV sterilization cabinet and ran it one full cycle (for four minutes). Because of the size of my mold, it was incapable of fitting inside a grow bag. To fix this, I cut off the bottom of the bag and down the middle of the back side of the bag. I then taped it to long flat section at the top of the form inside the UV sterilization cabinet and ran the UV cycle again. Once I had sterilized my mold, I was ready to add in my mycelium.
Before I packed my mold, I had to break up the growth I had been cultivating in the grow bag. My mycelium was notably a bit dry so I added sterilized water directly into my mold* before adding any material and also directly onto the material once in the mold. I massaged in the water through the plastic grow bag. Once I felt that it was as evenly distributed as possible, I taped all of the other edges of the grow bag to the plastic mold with tape, trimming the plastic as needed. After I resealed the media to my mold, I placed my piece back into the incubator.
*For future reference, I realized that I should have added the sterilized water directly to the grow bag when I was breaking it up so that I could easily shake the bag/readily redistribute the moisture in a sterile/contained environment.
I added approximately 3000 ml full of Red Reishi inoculated material into my mold. I filled my Red Reishi mold on 11/23/2024 for the secondary growth (inside mold).
> Additionally, on 11/26/2024, I filled another mold with approximately half and half of Ecovative Oyster mycelium and the remainder of my Red Reishi bag. (The delay was due to a needed confirmation that the oyster was okay to use due to there being a hole ripped into the grow bag and some mysterious black dots. ended up being due to the strain of mycelium and the hole was repaired quickly enough that the material was okay to use). There was approximately 1/4th of my red reishi bag left so I am approximating that there was 250 ml of each strain. Because the oyster was quite stiff, and my red reishi had already been a bit dry, I added in a small amount of sterilized water into the grow bag that contained the mixture of the two strains. I made sure to methodically break up the pieces as much as possible and to mix them evenly into another. I repeated the same process from above for packing my mold except I made sure to add the water to the bag rather than the materials once in the mold. I set my mixed mycelium project into the incubator.
The red reishi from earlier was on wood pellets with oat bran and the ecovative oyster was on hemp material. -> this material difference later caused disparity in growth.
I let my red reishi grow in the secondary growth stage until 12/4/2024. I periodically came into the lab to check on the progress of my growth and to check for no mold during this period.
Once I determined that there was an appropriate amount of growth, I then demolded my project carefully and placed it into a grow bag that was big enough to allow for the bag to not touch the mycelium on the top of the project. This allowed for it to grow a skin coating over the entire surface. I used tape attached to the shelf above to prevent the bag from touching the mycelium in its tertiary growth stage.
At this stage I was able to see the difference in the growth in the two. In my mixed mycelium project, it appeared that the wood pellet dust was isolated in these small pockets with no visible growth in them. Completely surrounding them, the Ecovative oyster mycelium appeared to be growing more abundantly right beside these pockets than anywhere else. We theorized that was due to the wood pellets holding more moisture than any of the other substrate materials thus allowing the fast growing oyster to prosper and readily draw in needed moisture to grow. These little pockmarks show up in the final piece as either the textured spots of brown wood grains or as the moon like craters of oyster.
On 12/10/2024, I was ready to start drying out my mycelium and prevent it from further growing. We turned the larger incubator into the oven-incubator because my piece was wider than the size of the mid-sized incubator. I placed parchment paper underneath to prevent the mycelium from sticking to the shelf (this led to what I believe to be some partial bowing in the pieces because it had uneven air flow to dry out the bottom versus the top). I put my pieces in at 5:00 pm on Tuesday night (12/10). I removed my red reishi piece on Wednesday morning at 8:45 am (12/11) from the incubator and my mixed mycelium piece at 1:40 pm (12/11).
Learn More
Please reach out to me at sofia.klimkowski.arango@gmail.com if you have any further inquiries or questions!