Alissa Allen will present "Mushrooms and Lichens for Dyes: Making rainbows from fungi" Alissa Allen is a self-taught mycologist and the founder of Mycopigments. She specializes in teaching about regional mushroom and lichen dye palettes to fiber artists and mushroom enthusiasts all over the world. Alissa got her start in the Pacific Northwest and has been sharing her passion for mushrooms for over 15 years. She has written articles for her website as well as Fungi Magazine and Fibershed. In 2015 she created the Mushroom and Lichen Dyers United discussion group and The Mushroom Dyers Trading Post. These groups have grown into a community of over 6000 members. In 2020 Alissa will host the International Fungus and Fiber Symposium in the US at a location yet to be disclosed. Alissa uses brilliant colors found in fungal dyes to entice people to take a closer look at mushrooms and lichens and the role they play in the greater ecosystem. To read more about her work, visit http://mycopigments.com/

Our presenters will be Carmen Rosen and Willoughby Arevalo - they're presenting "Fruiting Bodies and Mycelial Connections" Over the past year and a half, DIY Mushroom Cultivation author and VMS member Willoughby Arevalo, and Still Moon Arts Society founder and Artistic Director Carmen Rosen collaborated on a series of living mycelial sculptures which are installed in Renfrew Park. They will discuss their inspiration, process, and some techniques for sculpting in collaboration with living fungi.   Willoughby's lifelong friendship with fleshy fungi has led him down a mycelial pathway – from a start in field identification and mushroom hunting, branching into cuisine, DIY cultivation, farming, education, writing and eco-arts. In his thirty years of self-motivated inquiry and intimate lived experience with fungi, he has spent the last decade prioritizing sharing mycology with people in communities across North America This has manifested in numerous presentations, art projects, teaching tours, collaborations, gatherings, and his new book, DIY Mushroom Cultivation, out now from New Society Publishers.   Carmen is a visual artist, singer, and interdisciplinary performer. She has a long history of initiating art projects and creative community integrated projects that have resulted in enrichment of school programs, community enhancement, and ongoing creative work for many artists […]

Our presenter is our very own Sharmin Gamiet, with the topic "Towards Understanding Macrofungi of the Northwest Territories". After completing a project for Environment Canada on "General Status of the Species - Macrofungi," it became clear that there were significant knowledge gaps on the status of the macrofungi in the Northern areas of Canada. Dr. Suzanne Carriere from the Wildlife Branch of the Government of the Northwest Territories set out to rectify this situation. For the past 4 years, Sharmin and others have been visiting forest sites, mostly around the Yellowknife area but from other areas as well, to collect, photograph, document and voucher macrofungi, with the goal of creating a database of macrofungi for the Northwest Territories. This talk, an update on the project, will discuss the challenges faced in identifying forest macrofungi north of the sixtieth parallel. Sharmin Gamiet has been working with fungi for over 30 years, focusing on mushrooms and their relatives found in the Pacific Northwest (BC, Washington and Oregon). She has trained at UBC and the University of Washington using the Friesien species concepts (macro and micro morphological, rather than genetic traits, are used to group fungi). Sharmin has led mushroom forays throughout BC […]