Amy Maxmen, contributor
(Image: courtesy of Philip Ross)
I'm interviewing Philip Ross on mushrooms. The fungal chair he's sitting on at Workshop Residence in San Francisco slopes ergonomically under his back - whereas the underside of mine is shaped by the wheelbarrow in which it grew. The chairs differ in slight details too, with small antler-shaped mushrooms blossoming out of the white, grey and brown-speckled surfaces at seemingly random spots.
Ross, an artist, inventor and self-taught mycologist, says he "just allows these monstrosities to emerge". I'd call them organic beauties. Semantics aside, his chairs, footstools and tables withstand weight, falls and a fair bit of fire or water before they eventually degrade. Fungal furniture outlasts Ikea wares easily, Ross says.
Ross's rotten furniture line follows years of mushroom sculpting. His obsession with fungus began two decades ago when he worked as a chef who grew his own oyster mushrooms at home. He noticed that once the mushrooms sprout they bend in patterns that allow them to capture rays of sunlight beaming in from his windows. Curiosity piqued, Ross began to control their growth by filtering the incoming light into various shapes.
After a while, Ross's sights turned to the fungal body growing below mushrooms, which forms a rich network of thin fibres that normally remain underground. Where mushrooms are delicate and soon degrade, their body, or soma, is tough, durable and, as Ross discovered, manipulable.
Currently, his chosen fungus is Ganoderma lucidum (commonly called reishi or lingzhi), which has been hailed for its healing powers in traditional Chinese medicine for more than 2000 years. Reishi feeds on various woods, but the fungal furniture on display during his residency at Workshop Residence once feasted upon red oak sawdust.
As it digests the wood, it rearranges the fibres and forms a hard substance called chitin, also found in crab shells. The arrangement of the sawdust and the size of its chunks alter the chitinous forms that result.
(Image: M. Ross Luebe)
To design the furniture, Ross says, "you think about space in terms of cellular arrangements of the fungus, and about its relationship with gases and other physical qualities in the material around it".
Ross builds on tips from mycologists, industrial designers and farmers, but his technique primarily derives from thoughtful testing.
"It's all about precision, measurement and repeatability," Ross says. "It's good to be a little sloppy, as long as you take measurements so that you can repeat a positive outcome." For instance, an unwanted green mould once invaded one of his fungal sculptures. In desperation, Ross mixed kerosene with Vaseline and dabbed what he thought might be an anti-fungal preparation onto the mould spots. Instead, his fungus sprouted antler-shaped fruiting bodies.
With tools such as the serendipitous kerosene-Vaseline mix, Ross determines where a mushroom blossoms, where fuzz forms, and where the soma toughens: a black plastic bag pressed tight against the soma cuts off gas exchange, prompting the fungus to form a leather-like layer to encase itself.
Ross dismisses the notion that his rot is a dangerous addition to anyone's living room. Once a piece reaches a point to his liking, he kills the fungus within a 67??C oven and coats it with a biodegradable lacquer. That means the finished furniture is dead and spores to spread it no longer form.
According to traditional Asian medicine, reishi fungus strengthens the immune system. Building on that tradition, this spring Ross will grow a chair by feeding rice bran to reishi, break the chair apart, boil it, and serve it as a healing tea at an performance exhibit at the Machine Project art gallery in Los Angeles.
"To have a general fear of fungus is like having a general fear of animals or technology," Ross says. "There are zillions of fungi, so to vilify them all because of a couple of flesh-eating kinds - well, that's just not fair."
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