Photo: Jordan Freeman | Fulcrum Arts
Sam Shoemaker recently crossed the ocean on a mushroom. He launched his 14-foot kayak off California’s Catalina Island and paddled for 12 hours across the 26.5-mile Catalina Channel to San Pedro on a boat made entirely from a single mushroom. He built it from wild Ganoderma polypore collected near his LA studio and on his own finished it into a serviceable boat using no synthetic materials. While his project wasn’t commercial, the use of mushrooms in a variety of commercial applications is growing. Fungi, he argues, are inherently democratic. “They’re everywhere. They eat garbage at room temperature. If we can formalize that information, you’ll be able to grow vital things out of what you now throw away, without shipping it around the world.” Mushrooms are being used in lieu of leather in high-end handbags, as leather for sofas, and even in flooring. Current ventures suggest that fungal materials may someday line our walls, furnish our offices and fill our closets. Shoemaker is convinced that fungi aren’t just breaking into design, fashion and construction. They may be the quiet architects of a more sustainable future — allies and companions as we learn, at last, to build with nature rather than against it.
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