Having waited 4 days for the shapes I sculpted and formed from mycelium and hemp to grow and mature, I then had to bake them in the oven for 3 hours at 70 degrees Celsius. This stops the fungus from continuing to grow and dries out the shapes. The shapes had developed a soft white coating after I unwrapped them from the foil.

I sculpted the mycelium into link like shapes to build upon the slotting link shapes I developed in getting making III. The piecing together and joining of the pieces allowed for interaction and endless iterations and play. It also meant the pieces were monomaterial and needed no glue or fastenings, making them easy to dissemble and recycle responsibly. . You can see I had to pin the edges together using kebab sticks and once baked the shapes could be carefully slid together to create a larger form. I also sculpted a few pieces by hand, inspired by rock shapes I find soothing to hold, with the hopes I might transfer this hand feel to a new object.

The mycelium once baked can be fragile and brittle, as I discovered when I worked with the pre made pieces previously in Design Thinking. I went on to experiment with ways I could add colour and also protection and resilience to the pieces by testing coatings.

I needed to work with coatings that were also biodegradable so that it wouldn’t hinder the recycling process, and this led to me to attempt to use different composites with corn starch glue, paper and paint. You can see my initial experiments below.

1. Sanded mycelium shape 2. Mycelium shape with soft skin left 3. Textured mycelium rock shape left uncoated. 4. mycelium coated with cornstarch and blue paper pulp, layered x 3 and sanded back 5. mycelium coated with two layers paper pulp, sand and cornstarch glue, mycelium coated with cornstarch and paper pulp 6. Mycelium hoops coated in paper pulp and cornstarch composite.

In conclusion I think that mycelium is an excellent light weight base for creating and sculpting, which has the benefit of being compostable. As much as I like the feel of the bare and sanded pieces, they would deteriorate very quickly and perhaps wouldn’t suit objects that might encourage interaction or use in the home. Coating the pieces with composite made them more resilient however if they must be coated to be of use, I’m drawn to discover if I could achieve something similar ( a light weight sculpting base) using recycled cardboard papier-mâché, which would also cut down on the need for a sterile working space and minimise what was a 3 part process. This will be one of my next lines of research, alongside looking at the successes and discoveries from the cornstarch coatings experiments. It was really interesting to understand the limitations and also the benefits of the mycelium across my whole practice. It’s maybe not going to be useful for my object making going forward ( although perhaps my research will lead me to needing a more temporary material) but I now have an understanding of how to generate bespoke compostable packaging, which is extremely helpful when I think about how I might go on to sell or transport my products in the future.