Spore Prints: Mother Nature's fingerprint

Yup, I love mushrooms - hunting them, eating them, whichever it's no secret. I like to think of myself as a casual myco enthusiast, my friends see me as a mushroom freak! Well maybe it's true, I mean if mushrooms are involved I'm in... aren't you? C'mon they're like land coral. Not only are they one of the coolest things on the surface of the Earth, but probably the closest thing we'll ever experience to alien life form in our lifetime.

I'm surprised I don't own a pair of mushroom pajamas (hey there's an idea.) Soooo, down the street, there's this huge patch that comes up every year below a neighbor's cedar tree. With edible and poisonous look-a-likes they're too hard to identify so I normally don't mess with them. But even if I knew they were edible, I wouldn't eat them because my dog, Cooper pees on them everyday. But, I digress...

Anyway, something inspired me to pick a few (pee free I hope!) and make spore prints. One of the coolest things you can do with mushrooms except eating them, of course.  They're like a photographic record of the spore deposition over a given period of time. By overlapping prints I got some cool effects. Someday I hope to bring some element of this to my furniture, whether it be as straightforward as transferring the pattern to a tabletop or something else I haven't thought of yet it I'm sure the outcome will be worthwhile.