Teagan Crawford-Greene, ESJ, 2025
Before I took this class, I had worked with Grow Bio’s mycelium material, as well as mycelium inoculate ( the plugs that used for mushroom farming). I wanted this class, mainly this mycelium project, to give me the tools and techniques to manage large amounts of mycelium for my thesis project. My thesis is a futuristic speculative project set in 2060. One of the elements within the project is showing that I believe bio-materials, like mycelium will become a more common material and a material that become more accessible to the average creator.
Project Overview
There are two separate projects that I for this project. One is being allowed to grow over break with the goal to get the mycelium to fruit and for the fruiting bodies to fill out the rest of the mold. The second is a proof of concept/a test for the much larger version that I will creating next semester. The one that is growing over the break is in a mold to shape it into a gravestone. This gravestone will exist in a pair with another fully filled gravestone. In the context of my thesis these gravestone will be “created” by an artist in the future as a way of processing the impacts of climate change and grieving the loss of those around them. It will accompanied by an artist statement and also have a note that makes this artist a member of a future artist collective I have imagined. As a group itself, they are an integral part of the future Baltimore community, expanding the impact that artist community has in Baltimore now.
The second project, the one you can see the mycelium in pictures, is a small scale of the “portal” that will be around the entrance of the space my thesis inhabits. I intend to use the same materials, likely dyeing the fiber with black walnut dye, and then growing similar shapes of mycelium (slightly altered) on top of the fiber net. It will then be hung and exist as a “doorway”. Earlier in the semester, I did test prints to see how mycelium takes to laser cutting and etching. I was planning to use that technique to laser etch the title and an acknowledgements and credits on the mycelium, having something different on each side.
Do these projects gave me a good look into what a realistic time frame for my plans are and how much material it will take to pull the project off.
Process
A good amount of my time in the project outside of inoculating the mycelium, was dedicated to making the molds of the gravestones. For the gravestone I sterilized 3L of wood pellet substrate, broken up into 1L bags. I used 400ml of filtered water for every 1L of substrate. I also added 15 g of bran to each 1L bag (which is what caused the need for more water). These bags were then autoclaved. I used about 70g of inoculate for each liter bag. These were then sealed very thoroughly and allowed to grow. Once that material had grown for a little less than 2 weeks packed it into my mold and have been letting it grow since November 26th. This mold will grow over break and be exposed to light to encourage fruiting.
For the material I used for the mycelium on the hanging net, I used my own Grow Bio material, that had been growing for about 2 to 3 weeks at that point. The dry weight of hemp husk material was just under 1lb per bag. That ended up being 3.2-3.5lbs after hydration. Every 1lb of material got about 31-33g of a gluten free flour blend (because I have celiacs and can’t work with regular flour) that contains: rice flour, brown rice flour, sorghum flour, potato and tapioca starch, as well as cellulose gum and xanthan gum. Each bag got roughly 750 ml of filtered water. When I prepping my molds for the hanging mycelium, after making the choice to let my gravestone mold grow after break, I added 400 ml of autoclaved water and 50 ml of rice flour to the growing Grow Bio material to make sure the material was moist before being put in the molds to grow for a week.
These mycelium molds, made out of 3D prints, was then attached on both sides to a sewn fiber. This was created using gelatin based laundry bags that hospital use as it is much cheaper than dissolve fabric. Due to my panic when it come to making sure I am fast with the mycelium so it doesn’t get infected, I completely forgot to take picture of the process of mycelium outside of making the gravestone molds. So here’s a photo of Lilly, Vanna White-ing with my wrapped up gravestone mold.
Learn More
Instagram: @green.tea.ec
Website: https://tecrawfordgreene.wixsite.com/mysite
Personal material source: https://grow.bio/