FAR

This Earth Day, learn how to work with mycelium as a medium, develop botanical palettes from organic materials, and learn principles of ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging. Each student will receive a DIY Jar with curated botanical materials. These materials will be applied during the workshop, and students will learn how to apply the materials through methods found in ikebana. Students will learn how to process organic materials into watercolors from avocados, pomegranates, and blueberries. The process used to create watercolors from botanical materials is called Laking. Students will also learn why trees are important to art making, the history of the medium, and how and why to use healthier materials for a healthier world.Thanks to a generous sponsorship by North Spore, each participant will also leave with their own at-home mushroom grow kit in addition to their artistic work with the mycelium. This is a plant based workshop and all materials are provided for each participant.

About the Instructor

Maria Schechter is a bio artist local to Bloomington, Indiana. Her unique practice centers around reverence for the natural world and investigation into living matter, specifically mycelium as a medium. Maria refers to her paintings as dimensional works on paper. Using only living, organic materials, she calls her paintings recipes. Her mission as an artist is to use healthier materials for a healthier world.

Maria’s work has been published in the Ecological Citizen (July 2022) and Eluxe Magazine (August 2022), the world’s first sustainable luxury publication and a variety of other publications and newspapers.