So it was really hot last summer. Like really really hot. This did not bode well for finding mushrooms in NYC or even upstate NY during the summer of 2010. It was a time to lay low and drink a lot of ice water laced with a dollop of honey and a squeeze of lemon slice under the ceiling fan running on high. And repeat such scenario for the next few weeks, months even. When the rains of October began and brought some relief, mushrooms started popping up in surprising places. Most of these mushroom finds are posted on my profile at Project Noah’s website: http://www.projectnoah.org/users/anne+yen. In keeping up with that and other social networks, my documentation on this blog dropped. I hadn’t posted since July 2010.
Now I’m back, wondering what to use this blog for. I started it to document mushrooms I was finding and photographing in Seattle, Tokyo and NYC. But then I started to document those on other photo sites, like the aforementioned Project Noah. So what then? I want to keep it mushroom themed and because there is a dearth of mushroom art blogs and I really love illustrating mushrooms, howzabout I devote it to that? Mushroom art and ephemera, whatever ephemera means. Besides, I’ve been working on some things lately…
Slippery Jack, watercolor by Anne Yen
With this recent series of paintings, what if mushrooms were characters of movies due to arrive soon to your part of town? To a forest or park near you? This one was inspired by the Slippery Jack, or Suillus luteus, found in November in the sand dunes under some pines in front of the office at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, part of Gateway National Recreation Area.
