Mushroom Sculptures with Chris Ritson
Alisa Nappa
Normally people put posters or paintings on their wall but Chris Ritson is opening up the possibility for people to put living mushroom art in their home. Bioart is the process that people work with biology to make art, and Chris takes it a bit further by making self destructive bioart art, meaning it's meant to naturally decompose in your garden at the end of it's life.
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TRANSCRIPT
Alex 0:12
Welcome, welcome. You are listening to the mushroom revival podcast. I'm your host, Alex Dora. And we love mushrooms here at mushroom revival, we dive deep into the wonderful, wacky, mysterious, incredible world of mushrooms and fungi. We bring on guests and experts from all around the globe to geek out with us, and dive deep. So today, we have Chris Robertson on to the show. And he's tuned in from a wahoo. So how you doing, Chris?
Unknown Speaker 0:43
I'm doing great. Thanks for having me.
Alex 0:45
So for people who don't know, you and your work, who are you? What are you up to?
Speaker 2 0:53
Well, first of all, thank you for having me on. Very excited to talk to you about this stuff. As I said, I grew up in Oahu and a town called Kailua on the windward side, pretty close to the ocean, I spent most of my life here spent some time in the mainland and San Francisco, New York. And yeah, that's it. I work been working with art for probably close to 20 years now. And found my way into mushrooms about 10 years ago, although it's been something I've been really interested in my whole life.
Alex 1:30
And what what initially got you into both mushrooms and fungi, but then turning them into these wonderful pieces of art.
Speaker 2 1:41
There's kind of a progression and the stuff I was working with the neurons also relationship I had to the art world as I got more involved in it. I became really interested in more conceptual works, things that were less object based, less commodity based, and was working through video art and performance art and installation art, and eventually got kind of fascinated in the idea of generative or auto destructive art stuff that created itself or destroyed itself at some point. For a lot of ways, and I think that was related to the experiences I was having with galleries and art shows, and large events were the experiences of waste and sort of frivolous investment in spaces and resources were really overwhelming. Especially in a place like Hawaii, it's one thing to see a gallery repainted every 30 days in New York or San Francisco, but those resources here just seem so much more relevant to what we're all experiencing.
Alex 2:47
Did you did you see bankruptcies painting that self destructed when it was sold? Yeah, I thought that was Yeah, that's so great. Yeah. For people who don't know the story. Banksy is a famous street artist and he sold a painting for $1.4 million and the second it sold and in the auction he made like this mechanized thing in the in the frame that had razor blades and it shredded the painting the second it was sold and it was you know, everyone was recording it you could look it up on video but it when you said kind of the self destructive art or however you phrased it that that's immediately what what came to mind. And and so for people who haven't seen your Instagram, can you kind of give a walkthrough on on these huge kind of, you know, for me if I had one, I would put it on my wall, but I don't know what what your idea of these pieces are, what you would actually call them. But how do you make them from from step one to completion?
Speaker 2 4:05
Well, yeah, I think they are just to give people an overview who haven't seen them they are meant to be put on a wall. They are meant to mimic a painting in a lot of ways. Although a lot of the other stuff is reached more sculptural background, I was definitely considering two dimensional graphics. I start by collecting wild mushrooms. I live in a really unique spot on a wall who probably give you guys a brief history. It was a deforested mountain that used to be one of the most dense native forest on the windward on the Honolulu side. We sit right above Honolulu, and it's a cinder cone so it's a lot newer than the rest of the mountain range came out millions of years later than the volcanoes were formed the defining island after the deforestation by cattle and To the sandalwood trade, the federal government of Hawaii, or of the US came to Hawaii and uses space as an experimental agriculture land. So the whole mountain was reforested with all different kinds of crops that they were considering their value valuable qualities and future of Hawaiian farming. The problem was, most of them became very invasive. Everything that evolved in Oahu and across the islands, basically lost all its defense mechanisms. Hawaii doesn't have any large mammals or anything like that the plants needed to defend themselves from everything that got here drifted on the ocean or floated over here. So when plants from Asia or Australia came here that had a lot of defense mechanisms like poisons or thorns, the native forest had no chance. So this area is really, really crazy. Each side of the mountain is a totally different sort of forest, really aggressive, weird stuff from all over the world. And it's really, really wet. It's one of the wettest areas, it's actually where we collect a lot of the water for Honolulu, rains down here and filters into the ground and becomes a drinking water. So as I'm sure you can imagine, it's a really interesting place for mushrooms. There's a lot of diversity in a really small area and really perfect environment for stuff really rapidly fruiting stuff really diverse species growing here. And so I get to head out and I mostly try to collect stuff really close to where I am within you know five miles just because theoretically and conceptually that works best for what I'm trying to do. I clone stuff are really love clever I cloned way more things and I've actually used then grow them out like you would any edible mushroom on the green. And move that on to sawdust colonize this original product project was really focused on colonizing invasive trees. The idea was, how can I create an artwork that is actually beneficial for the environment. So the idea was, I take a mushroom, I clear the forest of invasive trees and native ones can have a chance to grow back. And I take that sawdust colonized with mushrooms produce a commodity piece of art that has value conceptually, artistically and perhaps monetarily. And at the end, the decompose material goes back into the earth and creates a situation that was hopefully better than me, it began my fruiting environment is pretty unique. I don't use a greenhouse, I do it in an outdoor area, basically under a canopy forest canopy. And the fruiting conditions really are expressions of environment, the time how much rain we're having, how much wind where the sun is coming from. And so in that way, I'm really striving to make a really site specific living work that as I said, contributes positively to the environment here.
Alex 8:18
And and I see most of what you use this picnic for is saying st greenness or however you want to pronounce it is that because it's so prolific around you or is there certain properties that make it ideal to work with
Speaker 2 8:38
a little bit of both, it's definitely one of the most aggressive. By far the most aggressive mushroom I've worked with up here that is a poly bore. I like working with poly pores because you know they're really thick, they're really strong. They're slow growing, so they'll live over you know, almost four months in the fruiting stage of change. Originally I was really drawn to the color it's brilliant orange really, really bright when you see it in understory it just stands out so much but it really really took a front seat when I realized how strong it is. It's a really strange mushroom. It took me a really long time to isolate because when you get it on the Aguilar all of a sudden this fuzzy little my cilia comes out it looks just like a contamination like trike or something. And then the more rise amorphic mycelium follows it and I kept trying to isolate Rhys morphic one. Finally I just gave up and threw it on some grain and turned out that weird little fuzzy stuff is some sort of mycelium it sends out like within, you know, six hours it will colonize our dish before the other stuff comes. So something about that is really, really spectacular. forms a really dense structure when it bonds the saw this together and it grows pretty rapidly. But I don't think I'd be doing any of that if it wasn't for the colors wasn't for just the vibrance that a lot of people, when they look at this work have a lot of trouble believing there's something alive that they're actually mushroom. A lot of people are very, very confused and confronting this stuff who don't have a background in mycology or even just hiking, you know, up here. And so that is something I really want to capture is expressing the alienness of mushrooms to people in a really novel way. We'll get them excited about it.
Alex 10:36
Have you ever worked with bioluminescent species?
Speaker 2 10:40
I have not. There is one species in Hawaii that's gotten here pretty recently. It's Philo boletus, manipular latas. I think it came here from South Asia. And I've only heard about it you know, in the last five years or so showing up and people have only seen it on kawaii? I don't absolutely love to. I am a little conflicted to a while. Go ahead.
Alex 11:08
Is that what you just posted on your Instagram? In March?
Speaker 2 11:13
Actually, I haven't identified yet. Oh, yeah. So that one is the file by Letus is on Kawhi. And I'm a little hesitant to bring it to a wahoo. Because it's very possible it is an invasion of mushroom. It's really hard not to want to bring stuff in between islands because there's such cool stuff growing on the other ones. But hopefully I will have time to spend on kawaii to do a project with that. I have and do plan to work with fluorescent mushrooms for sure. And I only recently got the the sort of flashlight that I can take outside and see what is fluorescent a UV flashlight. And it really blew my mind because one of these mushrooms I've been working with for the last year. I actually don't have any fruiting right now. But I have done a ton of pieces is actually fluorescent, and just blew my mind. But there's actually two species I have in culture that I know are fluorescent one is bright, neon yellow and the other comes out it's like a purple color. And then I've noticed two or three other species in the yard just that are fluorescence. So I do have hopes of doing you know, large pieces under blacklight. I think that'll be really cool for people.
Alex 12:32
Nice. Are there any other species that you want to work with that you haven't maybe cracked the code with? Or haven't gotten your hands on or haven't figured out how to cultivate? Etc?
Speaker 2 12:45
Yeah. Well, one of those really common one around this area is the Chinese medicinal mushroom. Mysamma filthiness I think Linteus Yep. Yep. And it's probably not that exact species. It turns out when people do genetic analysis of a lot of the mushrooms in Hawaii, they are unique a lot of the times, which is really interesting. But this one grows really prolifically. And for some reason, I had a lot of trouble getting it past ag our dish, but it's one of the largest conks you'll see in the forest year, and they just tear apart trees, sometimes dead trees and never seen anything like it. So they can get
Alex 13:26
huge. I've seen some massive ones in China that are, you know, half the size of me or almost the full size of me they get they get massive. Yeah, that'd be really cool to work with.
Speaker 2 13:41
Yeah, that. Let's see, I want to really want to work with familia, the jelly fungus the snow fungus. I haven't gotten into that. I believe it's two species living together. Yeah. colonize really hard to cultivate for sure. But I know people do. I know it's been cultivated for a while in Asia. So that's on the list. But yeah, those are two the next two I'll probably try to pursue.
Alex 14:07
And you said something at the mushroom Fest and something you touched upon in the beginning that you want these pieces to kind of self destruct and you don't use any you know, resins or anything to help preserve these pieces, like forever. And for you as the artist, that's kind of the point is to realize that the composting aspect is part of nature. And that's that's kind of the element of the piece. Is that right?
Speaker 2 14:41
Yeah, definitely. not opposed to preserving stuff, I think but the original concept definitely aligns with that. And it makes exhibiting them pretty difficult. I have to say, the few times I've tried to exhibit living stuff. I don't think it worked out for similarly, they were probably much more like a dehydrated solid state. Getting something in a gallery space to grow is very difficult. But it doesn't mean I'm not more interested in trying to provide people with the experience of seeing things living. And you know, that's gotten me on to a kick where I'm trying to you know, I'm starting a nonprofit to fund a fun Garyun in Hawaii. Although not a scientific research from Gary I'm one that can actually exhibit living mushrooms more like a zoo or an aquarium actual Yeah, definitely. You know, it's really relevant here because we're a tourist economy here, majority of our income for the island comes from tourists and our the zoo and our aquarium are major major attractions. We have a lot of people from Asia coming and the shift in what people are interested has gone really from, you know, khaki luaus and my ties to go into really remote natural things experiencing cultural qualities of Hawaii. So I think it's a really good opportunity to expose people and mostly expose children to living things, and see progression of how stuff can grow. So I think the research I'm doing how to grow something in a more in a sealed environment, but also one that's really like something people can look at, will inform this and hopefully give not just me but other people working with mushrooms and Banzai, and all these different sorts of selective breeding, they're dealing with mushrooms a good venue to you know, work in an expose ornamental mycology hasn't really been a thing, but we've been working with plants for purely, you know, ornamental reasons for hundreds of years. Even selective breeding of mushrooms is hasn't gotten too far. It's been like 8000 years of selective breeding with plants. So I think we're at a point where stuff is really going to explode and what it's looking like and what it's doing. And there's, you know, lots of structural and systematic things these mushrooms will be used for but just on a purely visual level, I think that's what's really going to fuel the interest in the next generation.
Alex 17:20
Yeah, I, I had the pleasure to go to a couple of mushroom museums in China, and they had these exhibits, they had like a couple different things, one, you know, where they had like, rooms where they have like a picture of the wild mushroom growing, and then they had like a dried specimen of the, you know, the mushroom preserved, and then they had like, right next to it cultivated, you know, on substrate, whatever. And then that was preserved. So it's kind of three different scenarios. And then they had this other section in this quarter SEPs museum that I was in, where they kind of simulated wild environments. And like they had, they're fake, but, you know, they had little, like, you know, you'd had to kind of find the quarter steps in the grass areas or like, on a tree or like, you know, and they had different environments, too. So one was maybe like a woodland environment, what was more jungle one was more like, grassland one was, so they had different kind of ecosystems where you might find it, and also different substrates. One was like, poking out of a log that was falling down and one was like, in the grass was on a tree in the tree, one was on a leaf. So you kind of had to like it was kind of like you like I Spy and you had to had to, you know, find the mushrooms which I thought was really cool as an exhibit, which we don't have here in the US we have tons of museums and art and, and pretty much you know, there's an ice cream Museum here in Austin all about ice cream. Like, you know, I I've been saying this for years, but I I really want someone to make a mushroom museum, or, you know, exhibit art museum some something along those lines to connect people and this more, kind of building the culture around mushrooms here more in the United States.
Speaker 2 19:22
Yeah, for sure. Well, let's hope it happens in Hawaii. But that's the thing. Like, I'll take people out on a hike and it's really hard for them to find mushrooms in the wild kind of take for granted if you're into foraging or, you know, looking at them when you're walking around. You can find them but most people can walk right past it. I don't know why it's a very different thing for people and looking at plants. And a lot of our museums here are well our aquarium and our zoo and we have incredible botanical gardens here. A lot of them are publicly funded. And we're just totally shorting an entire kingdom of animals here. That's Finally, we're realizing how relevant it is. So, yeah, I mean, maybe it's difficult in Hawaii because we limit a lot of our imports. So we wouldn't be able to exhibit as many species as you would on the mainland. But still gonna try it. And there's a lot of really cool local stuff to work with.
Alex 20:19
Yeah, I mean, even, you know, like, prehistoric museums and stuff like that, or, you know, there's like, they have dinosaurs there. And sometimes it's not the actual bones, but it's kind of like a mock up. So, you know, you could do like a rendering of a mushroom. That's not the actual one, but it's what it looks like just just to educate people. There's tons obviously it'd be way cooler with the actual mushroom but yeah, some some of the limitations living on an island.
Speaker 2 20:50
Yeah, definitely do a mix. I think you could touch people and do composting two, I love that process. I love Burma, Burma composting my mushrooms. And, you know, it'd be a really great space to have a community work area. There's not a lot of public, there's no public labs here. The university is really limited and it's mycology programs. And as more and more people are asking me how they can get into this, how they can start growing them besides just the grow kit they put on their kitchen counters.
Alex 21:23
What what has been the weirdest species or piece that you've ever created? And I do have to say your latest pieces are pretty weird. They have a eyes and teeth on them. They're like pretty far out there. Yeah, that's something that might give me nightmares.
Speaker 2 21:43
So I started casting masks just like portraiture and putting glass sides and dentures and um, and that really came out of just how freaky people find mushrooms sometimes. And you know, those were really fun. Those add a lot of really interesting interactions and it is people are you know, are they grossed out by them or they freaked out is interesting is beautiful. Some of them look really beautiful, but some of them are just like terrifying. So, yeah, those have definitely been the freakiest ones, the weirdest stuff. As far as species, I think. pretty clearly I worked with a zile area species that actually cloned accidentally working for something else and isolated something and all of a sudden, after a couple of movements on the Ag are sprouted up and it was I Leiria fruits much. It's cool. What is that but it hit the roof of the plate and they start growing against the glass like flat and like doing this weird thing where looks like an ink drying like scribbling all over. And fortunately, it wasn't like preservable at all. And once they start sending out spores, it became a huge mess. But that's something I'd like to do more that species and other species hitting glass and growing in a really strictly flat two dimensional plane
Alex 23:10
Yeah, I love maths, but there's something about those that I think it's like the how real the eyes and teeth look. Like too real like it's almost like too close for comfort, you know? Yeah, and the candidate looks like a human face like was melted into this weird fungus.
Unknown Speaker 23:35
Yeah. You know, you can pose to
Alex 23:40
Yeah, yeah. And who would you say are your greatest artistic influences? For this work, and then just in general, and
Speaker 2 23:54
I think there's like three guys that stand out to me neuro postmodern art artists, probably from like, between the 50s to the 80s. All of them are working goofed off Gustaf Metzker. He is a British artist and that term, I used auto destructive art. He really coined it. He was really intense activist and working against British colonial influence and economic sort of domination in the art world. His most famous works are paintings painted with acid Nasod, eats through the painting destroys it eventually, I did other sculptures that were like pieces of glass that would slowly over time, fall and break and shatter. He did installations with crystals who use liquid crystals that would grow and destroy themselves in space. So he was subverting the art economy and the collector influence and sort of big economic influence that drives a lot of art production. Sion, and he made really, really beautiful stuff at the same time. Let's see, Joseph boys. I really love him. He's a German artist who mostly did performance art. So he wasn't making objects or sculptures or photographs, but he was performing in the real world. And a lot of this stuff is about confronting art, confronting nature, and creating relationships with it. My favorite work, he locks himself in a room with a wild coyote for like a week. And it starts off, like terrifying. Like this coyote is threatening to kill him. And he's really confused. And by the end of the performance, they become friends. They're sort of hanging out, they're sleeping on the same pillow. And as an artwork, it really talks about how to navigate a world within a context of the gallery, but also with really positive, broad perspectives. And then literally, my art is like, a lot like this guy, Andy Goldsworthy, who is famous for making art out in nature that is going to destroy itself is gonna like fall away. So he'll make you know, really
Alex 26:14
right sculptures with,
Speaker 2 26:16
you know, really intricate sculptures with stones or you know, feathers or leaves that are only there, maybe for the day and then fall apart. And, you know, leaves no trace makes no problem in the forest. And I just really love his work. They're really beautiful. You really got to see photos of it to do justice, but they're visually really, really compelling.
Alex 26:38
Oh, yeah, I love him as an artist. He's, he's great. And there's this. There's this concept of this story that that I've learned in, when I was studying Zen Buddhism that reminded me of this, which it's the concept of kill the Buddha, which is like it's, it's based off this story, where it's been a while it's been like 10 years since I've, I've heard this story. So I met butcher butcher it a little bit, but the gist of it is that some monks were in a in a Zen monastery, and there was a terrible storm, and they get trapped in the monastery, there's snow build up on the door, they couldn't get out. And it's freezing. And, you know, one day passes, another day passes, again, and again, it's still storming. And they run out of food. And they start to really get cold, and they run out of firewood. And they're there and they're freaking out, they're starting to get, you know, colder and colder and closer to death. And one, one of the monks just takes an axe and goes over to a big wooden statue of, of a Buddha. And he starts hacking away at the statue. The other monks were like, Oh, my God, what are you doing? You know, like, how could you you know, disgrace such you know, like the Buddha and he's just, like, kill the Buddha, like, you know, and, and the whole point of this story was like, that's not the Buddha, that's just a wooden statue. And if I don't chop this down, and, you know, use it as firewood, we're all going to die. And, you know, we're all the Buddha. So, you know, and it kind of goes into that, that this the same premise, what, what you're describing in the art world of like, everyone's so they're holding on to this, this ideology, or object of art, and they're unwilling to come to terms with the cycle of life and death. Which is fungi are the greatest teachers of so I don't know why that that story just came to mind when you're when you're talking about this of kill the Buddha. I
Speaker 2 29:10
think that's really relevant. You know, I love painting, absolutely love the history of it. I love contemporary painting. But it's really important when you look at a painting, not just the concept of the artists and the images there, but you see what it's made out of. We're talking about acrylics, plastic, petrochemicals, you know, bleached cotton, wood, it's not sustainably harvest. And then there's a whole network that caused it to get to you the laborers and workers and factories, and all of that, and that's not considered in the object most of the time, although totally should be like we should be considering that where our theory is, it's totally irrelevant, but it's very easy to overlook, and we should be integrated in that process with nature and I Think you're totally right. fungi is the perfect way to teach.
Alex 30:06
And how how has your style evolved over time? With working with fungi? Obviously, it looks like the masks are new. And you started with these wall fixtures and now you're moving to mass. Is that right?
Speaker 2 30:21
Yeah, I probably will go back. I do like the panels. Personally. Really, it's changed though, as I got a lot better at growing over, I've been working with time I've been working with this. I've had the chance to up my lab supplies and my lab itself from what was really just a still air box and some Ziploc bags originally, to really comfortable space. I mean, my laminar flow hoods still homemade. But I have one now I've gotten to experiment with supplements and different mediums and isolate, you know, I work with this picnic for us. But I've gone through probably like 10 different strains of collected. And I haven't started breeding them yet, I really look forward to being able to work on new strains that I've defined. But for now, I'm really sort of made a really strong foundation to start each of these pieces on, I can calculate how long it will take and you know what moisture content is going to be the best. Mostly what supplements are the best has made the biggest biggest influence. And most of that research is really jumped in the past like year, I got a grant from the National Foundation during the pandemic, National Foundation for Art and was able to just do pure research on that and invest a little bit in the lab space, and really plot out the sort of timelines and do it much more systematically than I had. So as that goes, I have a lot more confidence and saying this will take exactly eight months to produce or whatever the details are. And also I can scale it up infinitely, it feels like most of these pieces are, you know, between three to four feet, some of them are larger, there's been some six foot squares, but the same process I can put together huge ones now I think. And once they get a little more space a little more opportunity, a look forward to doing sort of monolithic works with them. That's the cool thing about mushrooms, they scale so quickly. It's so cool, how quickly there's no other living thing. I've worked with a lot of other things generatively I grew crystals for a while. I worked with chemical reactions, worked with plants. But once I got into mushrooms, it's just nothing that grows as fast. It's so satisfying to 24 hours see something grow and change visually. So that's really made it like the perfect material for this kind of bio art generative artwork.
Alex 33:00
Do you have a favorite piece that you've ever created?
Speaker 2 33:05
I think the very last panel I made really did it I really felt like I locked into the right mix of everything is very satisfying. Nice. One thing I really want to do is get a solid time lapse of this stuff because the pictures you see are like two or three layers over that mushroom start to pin and then they grow and fill up the space and then they keep growing over themselves and they keep growing again. And it just makes the movement itself would be really beautiful. It's this whole sort of poetic movement between the shape on like a flat surface that just I would love to be able to capture better, it's kind of hard to do because I'm in an outdoor environment, but I am locking down and I have been tracing the parameters outside the humidity and oxygen levels. So like to recreate this stuff and share the whole process with people eventually.
Alex 33:58
So I had in my mind that you grew these and kind of, you know, cook them in the oven kind of like a biomaterial to kill the mycelium to stop it growing. And that was like in a in a semi solid state. But it sounds like it's always living. It's always continuously growing. Is that right?
Speaker 2 34:21
Yeah, it is originally I have really pursued that gone into trying to preserve them. And I do feel pretty confident I have some methods that would work. It was very hard to find something that was sustainable as well. But in the future, I can preserve stuff with under a vacuum with wax and a tree sap called Damar varnish. That combo is used in Greek art that still exists in perfect condition where Wood was preserved in this Damar varnish and wax. So I have competence. I have pieces I worked with that have been literally sitting outside for years and years. is now and have shown no decay. But it's hard to preserve the colors exactly with that. So I've also done experiments, casting them in resin, and plasticization, those all require some pretty nasty chemicals. So I do want to be able to sell these. But I'm hesitant to invest and to work personally with a lot of these chemicals that I think are really hard and harsh. Also, there's the possibility of casting them. I've seen people cast metal cast mushrooms, just put them in a mold and burn them right out, pour metal in there. So there has been a lot of a lot of interest in buying them from people, I have to say. I'm like any of the I've had pretty successful work with some of the crystals, I grew financially, but it's very tempting to work more with preserving them. So maybe you'll see that in the future. But for now, these ones are definitely been designed to grow and die. And working with grant money is a lot more relevant to try to pursue stuff like that, or doing installations with galleries that are going to fund that. But it's also really, really hard to do that. And most artists end up making work the way they make it, because there's a market that wants to buy that. And that market, it's mainly representing a very small fraction of people who are going to actually enjoy it. So yeah, I can't say I'm not tempted to preserve it. And I won't say I haven't put a lot of research into it. But technically, no, they're not supposed to be preserved.
Alex 36:36
What what's been the hardest part of this work for you
Speaker 2 36:41
contaminating, it's hard for anyone who's grown mushrooms, and wow, you you get so far you get to the last stage, it's like your little baby. And then all of a sudden, one day, there's some old green spots in there, day or two, everything's dead and you're just heartbroken. So I've lost entire grows like at different points. That's been pretty hard, especially if there's a deadline for something. But it's also cool, you learn a lot from it. It's not like the materials are going to waste. It's not like when you mess up a painting, you have to throw everything in the garbage just goes right back out there. To our flower farm, we run a flower farm up here. So stuff is literally being recycled into another commodity that we can sell. That's awesome.
Alex 37:29
And what's what's the most rewarding aspect of this for you?
Speaker 2 37:35
The growth, the actual going out and seeing things grow. I've always been really interested in growing things as a kid, I was totally obsessed with the ocean, you know, aquariums, bugs, anything that was alive, I really just wanted to experience when I was young. And I don't know, I just really love growing things in all regard seeing things change and being part of that really, really liberating feeling. I had worked in aquaculture before this and I thought I was gonna go down that path of growing things, mostly for food, and it was shrimps. But for a lot of reasons, I gotten more into ornamental varieties of stuff, the mushrooms and I also work with flowers, I grow a lot of flowers too. And mushrooms are the best because like I said earlier, they grow so fast. It's nothing else like that. And just throughout the day throughout a week, it's really, really satisfying to go out and engage with that sort of process.
Alex 38:43
Well, I'm looking forward to the bioluminescent slash fluorescent art pieces and the funk Areum with the exhibit and potentially the preserving of some of these pieces where people can actually buy them and put them on their walls for long term viewing, which would be cool. And yeah, is there anything else that you are working on behind the scenes that you you want to talk about?
Speaker 2 39:20
Not the jumps to my mind. I think I've talked about a lot of that stuff already. Can't think where
Alex 39:25
where can people follow your work? I'm mostly
Speaker 2 39:29
updating on Instagram. My handle is just Chris Ritson ch ri ES. Alrighty, so when I try to keep that updated with all the new stuff.
Alex 39:41
Cool, awesome. Well, I'm sure at least one of you listening once you check out his work well want to buy it and send him a message. So prepare for that and and thank you everyone for for tuning in and tuning in to another episode. Wherever you are in the world and And thanks, Chris for coming on. If you are a first time listener or a longtime listener, and you want to support the show, we don't have a Patreon or anything that you could donate to. But we do have a website, mushroom revival.com, where we have functional mushroom products from tinctures, capsules, gummies powders, and then I just published a book not too long ago that's live on the site. Now we have fun nightlights and keychains and other stuff on there as well. As well as free ebooks, blogs, stuff like that. And if you don't want to spend any money, we have a free giveaway going on right now. And that will be in the link of this podcast where you can win some free goodies. So sign up there if you if you want to win some free mushroom goodies, and then leaving a review always helps. And besides that, you know if you learned something cool on this episode, or another episode, just spread the word to more people. We need more mushroom people in the world doing cool things like what Chris is doing and beyond making museums and Hungarians and getting out in the woods and so, talk about it. Tell your friends tell your neighbor, tell someone at the grocery store and keep the mycelium spreading. So with that much love and may this force be with you
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
