13th – 19th August 2018
It was a colourful meeting at the Rønningen Folk High School in August when the mushroom dyers in Norway arranged the 18th IFF symposium. The Board of the Forum for Mushroom Dyers (FFS) was responsible for the event, and the planning stretched over 2 years. The symposium attracted a lot of international interest, and we ended up with 98 attendees: Sweden 14, USA 11, Denmark 11, Canada 4, Scotland 4, Estonia 2, Spain 2, Australia 2, Belgium 2, Luxembourg 1, England 1, Finland 1, Bulgaria 1, Germany 1 and Norway 41. The Rønningen Folk High School was well suited for all the symposium activities.
Workshops
Dyeing with mushrooms. Ruth Solem and Johs Bjørgo held six workshops. Nine dye mushrooms were used in combination with various mordants and adjustments of pH in the dye baths resulting in 32 beautiful (of course!) coloured wool samples, as seen on the photograph.
Dyeing with lichens. Anna-Elise Torkelsen held two workshops with five lichens.
Pot luck dyeing. A regular event at these symposia is the pot luck dyeing where this time 20 participants dyed their own yarn in the leftover dye solutions from the mushroom and lichen dyeing workshops. They all seemed very happy with the results.
Other workshops and the ones responsible for them.
- Making mushroom paper -Trine Parmer,
- Watercolour painting – Liza Johansson,
- Domino knitting – Astrid Schjellungen,
- Brioche knitting – Inger Wegner,
- Mini-loom – Barbro Wingård,
- Needle felting – Karin Hvoslef,
- Nuno felting – Grete Hollerud,
- Single needle knitting – Hanne-Beate Thomsen,
- Making silk rosettes – Betsy Samuelsen,
- Creative embroidery – Inger Walker.
Lise Walter had an extremely demanding task in trying to fulfill the participants’ many wishes as most of them partook in two workshops.
Forays and excursion. In spite of a poor mushroom season (mostly due to a long drought period) the participants still found some mushrooms of interest on the three planned forays. These were lead by Tove Jacobsen, Trond Berg Hansen, Johs. Kolltveit, Berit Kolltveit, Toril Deildok and Sarin Cunningham. Our Danish friends Ole Terney, Jørgen Albertsen and Preben Graae Sørensen identified the mushrooms and set up the exhibition.
The “All day” excursion was a trip to Fossekleiva Art Centre and Berger Museum which are situated in a closed down textile factory in Svelvik. There were many interesting exhibitions and it was exciting to meet the artists who opened their workshops for us.
Exhibition and sales. Many people contributed to the exhibition with creative and beautiful sweaters, jackets, waistcoats, hats, scarves, carpets, pillows etc. which show what a wide spectrum of colours one can obtain from dye mushrooms.
Inger Walker, Hege Dagestad and Eldbjørg Johansen had put together an elegant and colourful exhibition. A large collection of mushroom dyed items, dried dye mushrooms and mordanting chemicals were for sale.10% of the income from the sales goes to “seed money” which will be sent to the arrangers of the next symposium in 2020 together with a 10 Euro charge from each participant. Gry Handberg and Lise Walter were responsible for the sale.
Lectures and short comments. “Mushrooms for dyeing”- Klaus Høiland, “Fungi in Nordmarka” (area in and close to Oslo) – Kolbjørn Mohn Jenssen, “Dyeing of wool using Cortinarius semisanguineus, Hapalopilus rutilans, Phaeolus schweinitzii and Tapinella atrotomentosa. Testing of light fastness varying metal salt concentrations and additives in tin, alum and iron mordants” – Johs Bjørgo, “Chemistry of silk dyeing with Phaeolus schweinitzii”- Preben Graae Sørensen and “Fungi for Material Futures” – Ninela Ivanova. Susan Hopkins showed a series of slides of “IFFS from 1985-2016”. In “5 minutes from the members” Gry Handberg and Torill Bronken talked about “Experiences with cultivation of Hapaloplus rutilans”, Astrid Schjellungen told us about “Lichens outside my door” and fermentation of lichens. Alissa Allen told us about her project “Mushrooms and Lichen Dyers United – Mushroom dyeing in the digital age”.
19 IFFS Then, all of a sudden, the 18th IFFS was over, but we are all left with good memories from eventful and interesting days where we hopefully learnt a few things. Thank you new and old friends. Alissa Allen invites us to the 19th IFFS in USA, and we look forward to seeing at least some of you there.
The Board of FFS consists of Gry Handberg, Grete Hollerud, Inger Walker, Lise Walter and Anna-Elise Torkelsen (leader).
Anna-Else Torkelsen & Johs Bjørgo