It is with great sadness that I have to announce the recent passing of our dear creative innovative friend Carla Sundstrom who contributed so much in almost 50 years to the world of mushroom dyeing.
Often, when I think about Carla, I remember that delightful song sung by the nuns in the film “The Sound of Music”, “How do you describe a girl like Maria?” It personified Carla’s absolute joy in life and music, highlighting her creative, adventurous and generous spirit!!
How can I possibly begin to encapsulate my 65 years of memories of Carla? I had first met Carla Erickson who at 15 yrs was receiving a prestigious music scholarship award for her remarkable flute playing accomplishments. We met again a few years later as counselors at a Summer camp in Philo, CA, where Carla was the Nature counselor, and I was an Arts and Crafts counselor. We began as cabin roommates and soon became life-long friends! That 1959 summer camp experience lives on in my memory of Carla’s inquisitive and joyful approach in sharing her extensive knowledge of that magical redwood forest with the children, sometimes complimented with flute music around a campfire in the evenings!
Carla and I stayed in constant correspondence after that summer camp, with visits and exchanged lengthy letters while we were both continuing college. After her graduation from UC Santa Barbara, Carla went off hiking on an adventure into Lappland in northern Finland, and on into Sweden were she eventually met and married Erik Sundstrom, a young chemist and a very knowledgeable mycologist.
We each continued our correspondence throughout our own married lives, raising our children, as well as pursuing our individual careers, Carla with teaching and flute orchestral performances in Sweden, and I doing freelance scientific illustration in San Francisco.
My own illustration work, combined with a love of weaving, and a passion for spinning and natural dyeing, eventually led to my magical meeting with Miriam C. Rice in 1974 in Mendocino CA., with the opportunity to illustrate her first innovative book about mushroom dyeing, Let’s Try Mushrooms for Color (1976). I immediately shared my excitement about this new world of mushroom dyeing with Carla and Erik Sundstrom in Sweden. Both of them were quite knowledgeable about mycology and chemistry and were especially intrigued with Miriam’s research into the red dye pigments that Miriam had discovered in the “mysterious Cortinarius” species, (mentioned in Miriam’s first book). There was a huge selection of these species in Sweden forests, so Carla and Erik began hunting and experimenting with Swedish mushrooms for dye pigments, sending samples from their experiments back and forth to share with Miriam.
With the publication in1980, of Miriam Rice’s second mushroom dye book, Mushrooms for Color, the Sundstroms were enthusiastically inspired to consider translating Miriam’s new enlarged mushroom dye book into Swedish. However, finding so many different Swedish species (and conflicts in what was considered “endangered”, or not, in each country), Carla and Erik eventually decided to develop their own book devoted specifically to Swedish mushroom dyeing, and they invited me to illustrate it in Sweden. Farga med Swampar was published in Sweden in 1982.
Thus began a new and very intensely exciting creative chapter in my friendship with Carla and Erik Sundstrom, involving my first of several trips to Sweden. Throughout these years Carla, Miriam and I maintained a long, exciting letter writing and phone communication (there was no Internet or email in those days!), sharing experiments on dye chemistry. Erik even contributed a chapter about the intricacies of mushroom pigment and dye chemistry to be included in later editions of Mushrooms for Color by Miriam Rice.
As a result of the growing interest in mushroom dyeing throughout Scandinavia, in 1983, Carla and Erik Sundstrom helped to organize the 2nd International Mushroom Dye Symposium & Exhibition, with Miriam, which was held in Stockholm, Sweden. (The 1st Symposium had been held in the USA in 1980.) In 1985, a new book lavishly displaying many mushroom dyed fiber arts in Sweden & USA, Skapa av svampfargat garn, was published in Sweden as a collaboration of Carla & Erik Sundstrom, with Miriam Rice.
With her share of the ensuing royalties from that publication, Miriam decided to create a non-profit educational organization celebrating the worldwide expanding fascination with mushroom dyeing in fiber arts, and the International Mushroom Dye Institute (IMDI), was born! Here is a photo of Dorothy, Carla and Miriam in 1986 where we did a joint presentation and exhibit of mushroom dyed fiber arts at a Fungus Fair sponsored by the San Francisco Mycological Society.
Many international mushroom dye Symposia followed over the years with Carla enthusiastically teaching sharing her extensive mushroom dye knowledge. She was able to attend and teach at Symposia in Scotland, Norway, Denmark, Finland with many visits back and forth to the USA, as well as at the 2008 Symposium in Mendocino, CA where we all celebrated Miriam’s 90th birthday, and our long, loving mutual friendships.
Carla helped to organize as well demonstrating making mushroom dyes in an old traditional Swedish “washing machine” at the 14th International Fungi & Fibre Symposium in Gysinge, Sweden in 2010. While we were at the Symposium, Carla played a flute concerto in a moving memorial tribute to Miriam Rice who had passed away in Mendocino just days before the symposium.
Erik Sundstrom passed away in 2015, and Carla travelled one last time to the USA, staying with me for a few weeks as well as visiting with many old friends far and wide all over California. We continued to keep up our communication by writing and phoning each other up until just recently. She remained continuously active, as her health would allow, especially devoting time and energy to climate change issues, as well with family and friends until her passing at home in in Kungsgarden, Sweden… on September 1, 2024.
I will miss Carla with all of my heart, remembering her tremendous, creative zest for life and active concern for the welfare of our planet. Farewell dear friend!!!