Sam Shoemaker traveled more than 26 miles across the Catalina Channel, braving strong winds and choppy water. He paddled alongside a whale for miles and at one point hallucinated due to sea sickness.
And the Los Angeles-based artist did it in a kayak made from a single mushroom, one he grew outside his Lincoln Heights studio.
Shoemaker says he just wanted to hang out with other nerds and identify mushrooms around L.A, “but like every artist, I take everything that is pleasurable and I destroy it by making it my work.”
The boat itself, alongside large-scale projections, time-lapse videos and soundscapes that immerse visitors in Shoemaker’s ocean journey as well as the process of constructing the boat, will be on display at Fulcrum Arts in Pasadena. “Sam Shoemaker: Mushroom Boat” is the gallery’s first major exhibition and will run from Oct. 10-Jan. 17.
So, how does one dream up the idea of a fungal vessel sturdy enough to withstand the moods of the Pacific Ocean? For Shoemaker, it didn’t happen all at once.
In 2011, the artist says he was introduced to the work of Phil Ross, an acclaimed artist and influential figure in the world of mycelium material technology and mycelium composite production. Ross launched MycoWorks, a multi-million-dollar company that produces fungi faux-leather for luxury brands, including Hermès. Shoemaker, a 20-year-old student at the time, wanted to craft large living sculptures grown in the trash from his studio, but the resources for producing mycelium composites were scarce. He set the idea aside, letting it ferment in the background.
“At some point, I became interested in identifying the mushrooms that I was seeing on hikes with my dog, so I joined the L.A. Mycological Society,” Shoemaker says. “I told myself that I would use this as an opportunity to get away from the art studio, to meet new people, and not just exist in an art bubble in Los Angeles.”
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The next thing he knew, he was building a mushroom lab. There he crafted fungi sculptures, farmed gourmet mushrooms – lion’s mane, shitake and oyster – and sold them at farmers’ markets. “I had no intention of making the boat,” he says. “I don’t kayak. I had no real experience on the water. I live in East L.A. I maybe go to the ocean once a year.”
In 2018, fellow mycophile Katy Ayers built a canoe she dubbed “Myconoe” from mycelium while studying science at a community college in Nebraska. Shoemaker says he was impressed, and after being prompted by a friend, decided to try his hand at developing his own technology for crafting a boat. But there was a catch – he says he only wanted to build the kayak if he set a journey that would justify calling the creation a boat.
Shoemaker grew the 107-pound mushroom boat from wild Ganoderma polychromum mycelium outside his Lincoln Heights studio. It took six weeks for the boat to grow and another three months for it to dry. On Aug. 5, the artist paddled out of Two Harbors, Catalina Island, at 6 a.m., in what he describes as “moody, directionless light,” beginning his 12-hour, 26.5-mile journey across the Catalina Channel.
“You don’t really know how to use your body and your mind when you’re out in the middle of the ocean without any land in sight,” he says, describing the experience as an almost psychedelic, out-of-body experience in which his mind began to crumble.
“The morning was really, really rough. The currents and the tides were moving against me. I started to feel nauseous and hallucinate. It felt like I had lived 1,000 lives out there.”
Along the way, Shoemaker worried that the endeavor would fail, that his kayak might snap in half, and he’d have to be fished out of the water by the sailboat that followed behind him half a mile away for safety. “I had told hundreds of people that I was going to do this,” he says. “There’s a bit of pressure. It would have been worthwhile, even if it had failed, but it would have been embarrassing.”
And while reaching Cabrillo Beach with his body, mind and mushroom boat still intact was Shoemaker’s ultimate white whale, an actual whale became the artist’s unlikely guardian on his trek. “At first, I’m out there alone, just thousands of feet of water below me, and then this animal is circling around me,” he says. “At one point, it was directly under my boat for many, many football fields, where I could practically reach down and touch it if I tried.”
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“I was at the mercy of the whale,” he continues. “I had to just keep my calm, but all things considered, if a shark or a whale had taken me out, there are less interesting ways that I can fall off the mortal coil.”
Shoemaker safely landed at San Pedro’s Cabrillo Beach 12 hours after he departed on the same day. And Shoemaker’s boat appears to have found an appropriate docking place at Fulcrum Arts. The gallery’s mission is to bring artists and scientists together to collaborate toward positive change.
“Shoemaker’s work explores the potential of sustainable materials in unprecedented ways,” says Patrick J. Reed, curator at Fulcrum Arts. “His crossing of the Catalina Channel in a boat made of mushroom mycelium prompts us to recognize that innovative creative practices can guide our efforts toward ecologically responsible modes of inventing, exploring, and living our lives.”
Shoemaker says he hopes the successful voyage will inspire people to consider mushrooms as a viable alternative to plastic that ends up in our oceans. “There are a lot of things that we can do with fungi. I think where we will actually see the most significant impact is uncertain – whether that’s architecture or biodegradable packaging or mycelium leather, I think we see all of these projects emerging at the same time, and so many big ideas.”
“There’s really nothing that you can’t apply fungi to; they’re poison, they’re food, they’re medicine. They’re used in therapeutic practices. They’re used in conservation and remediation. We’re addressing heavy metals and oil spills with fungi, therefore restoring land after the fires in Los Angeles. I think all of these things are interconnected, and that’s exciting to be a part of and think about, and I think it helps me get out of bed in the morning.”
Sam Shoemaker: Mushroom Boat
Where: Fulcrum Arts, 544 North Fair Oaks Avenue, Pasadena
When: Opening Reception will take place Friday, Oct. 10, 6-10 p.m., and the exhibition will run Oct. 10 – Jan. 17