Gardens of Stone/Borrowed Landscape for BigCi, NSW, Australia

In 2018 Art2Grow received the Environmental Art Award from the BigCi Art Center in New South Wales, Australia. The dramatic landscape of the Blue Mountains in New South Wales is best seen in the Gardens of Stone National Park which features “pagoda” shaped rock formations. These dome shaped formations weathered out of layers of sandstone were the inspiration for our roughly cut wood planters to transform and revegetate a barren construction berm into our “borrowed landscape” garden of native flora specific to the Wollemi region. Enlisting enthusiastic local support we transplanted fungi collected on the grounds of the art center and hardy fire adapted understory plants grown in the local community  nurseries to create a miniature version of the unique local landscape.

 

Multiversity Garden for Womens' Studio Workshop

The Multiversity Garden was designed to follow the rail trail in front of the Womens’ Studio Workshop in Rosendale, New York. The garden is a line of 28 straw sculptures in the shapes of dots and dashes planted with non-native plants frequently found in American home gardens such as tomatoes, lavender, peppers, thyme, basil, eggplants, zucchini, and marigolds. The Morse Code message spelled out “Rise Resilient”, a metaphor for the richness and variety of the human population of America and the adaptability of floral and human immigrants to American soil. The harvest of these plants was offered free to the public.

 

MycoMender

MycoMender is a grouping of woven straw sculptures sited between a rain garden and a creek in Charlotte's Anita Stroud Park. The soil filled straw sculptures were inoculated with mycorrhizal fungi and planted with allium bulbs. The runoff channel behind these sculptures held mushroom inoculated straw liners which filtered the runoff water from the adjacent lawns to diminish the levels of nitrogen and phosphorous pollution in the waterways surrounding Charlotte, North Carolina. The combination of plant and fungal filtering in small strategically placed rain gardens in the watershed could ameliorate the effects of leaking sewge and excess fertillizer.

 

Tea Square for the VEGGIE Farmers' Cooperative

Returning to the Joan Mitchell Center in 2016, Mei-ling Hom and David McClelland formed the collaborative team called Art2Grow. Together they developed a project in East New Orleans to engage a Vietnamese farmers' cooperative in exploring new crop initiatives. They introduced planting tea as a local, sustainable, value added crop for the farmers. Tea or Camellia sinenis is a botanical cousin of the camellia found in New Orleans gardens. To test the growth viability of tea at this new site, a pergola with bench seating was built on the edge of the farm gardens. Along the back of the bench seating were raised bed planters with the young tea plant nursery. To bolster the root growth of these young plants mycorrhizal fungi was added to the soil mix. This arrangement offered a convenient rest or tea break stop for the gardeners while checking in with the growth progress of their new test crop.

Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest in Clermont Kentucky

Mei-ling Hom's residency at the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest was an opportunity to  work with the arboretum staff and the forest environment to connect her artmaking with the natural landscape. During this residency a growing sculpture of woven straw forms planted with herbs was designed and built for the Arboretum's Edible Garden.  The straw sculpture plantings were inoculated with an arbuscular mycorrhizae fungi which improved the soil structure for beneficial bacteria and microbes. The mycorrhizae fungi most importantly established a symbiotic relationship with plant roots and channelled difficult to access trace nutrients to the plant roots in exchange for the plants' carbohydrates.

The Intersection of the Visual and the Edible

In 2013, Mei-ling Hom was artist in residence at the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans. Working with the Grow Dat Youth Farm, she created an Edible/Visual site installation of straw sculptures inoculated with oyster mushroom spawn.

The New Orleans climate is perfect for mushroom growth. Here is an image of a Mushroom Bump fruiting in less than a month after being inoculated with oyster mushroom spawn.

Abington Art Center - Mushroom Cloud

Mushroom Cloud was exhibited at the Abington Art Center in Abington, Pennsylvania. The commissioned installation is a massing of poplar branches, innoculated with golden yellow oyster mushroom spawn.  During the winter months the mushroom spawn goes into dormancy until the spring rains and warming weather coaxes a bloom of oyster mushrooms.