Landscape, Art, and Ecology

CONTENTS OF CURRICULUM UNIT 24.01.08

  1. Unit Guide
  1. Introduction
  2. Mathinna: A Colonial Parable
  3. Mushrooms, Health and Climate Change
  4. Beatrix Potter
  5. Cy Twombly / John Cage
  6. Lesson Plans With Strategies and Objectives
  7. Conclusion
  8. Reading List for Teachers
  9. Reading List for Students
  10. Materials for Classroom Use
  11. Notes
  12. Annotated Bibliography
  13. Appendix on Implementing District Standards

Art of the Mushroom

Kasalina M. Nabakooza

Published September 2024

Tools for this Unit:

Annotated Bibliography

Bilclough, Annemarie, Richard Fortey, Sara Glenn, Emma Laws, Liz Hunter MacFarlane, James   Rebanks, Lucy Shaw, and Beatrix Potter. Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature. London:   V&A Publishing, 2021. This is an invaluable resource for understanding how and why   Beatrix Potter became an author and illustrator interested in mushrooms and the natural   world.

Bluemel, Nancy., and Rhonda Lynette Harris Taylor. Pop-up Books: A Guide for Teachers and   Librarians. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Libraries Unlimited, 2012. There is a wide range of   potential designs possible for pop-ups. Teachers can accommodate students based on   their needs using this guide of techniques and pop-up examples as a reference point.

Breedlove, Byron. "Beatrix Potter, Author, Naturalist, Mycologist." Emerging Infectious Diseases 25, no. 9 (2019): 1786+. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints (accessed May   8, 2024). http://dx.doi.org.yale.idm.oclc.org/10.3201/eid2509.181142. This journal essay   begins with an explanation of how mushrooms found their way into Baroque artworks  and connects it to Beatrix Potter’s closely observed mushroom artworks.

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopedia. "Beatrix Potter." Encyclopedia Britannica, July 24,   2024.https://www.britannica.com/biography/Beatrix-Potter. (accessed July 30, 2024).   This is an overview of the life of the British children’s author and illustrator Beatrix Potter.

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopedia. "John Cage." Encyclopedia Britannica, August 8, 2024.   https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Cage. (accessed August 9, 2024).   This is an overview of the life of the American Composer John Cage.

Cage, John, Kingston Trinder, Ananda Pellerin, Lois Long, and Alexander H Smith. A   Mycological Foray: Variations on Mushrooms. 2 vols. Los Angeles: Atelier Éditions,   2020.

Christie’s, Old Master and British Drawings. Christies: New York, 2019. Exhibition Catalogue.

Cook, Langdon. The Mushroom Hunters: On the Trail of an Underground America. First   edition. New York: Ballantine Books, 2013. This book provides teachers with an   understanding of mushrooms as food and the dangers of misidentification.

Flannery, Maura C. In the Herbarium: The Hidden World of Collecting and Preserving Plants.   Yale University Press, 2023. This book is a profound resource for understanding how and   why the study of botany began.

Foster, Kristina. 2020. "Mushrooms at Somerset House Opens the Spores of   Perception." FT.Com (Feb 28). https://www.proquest.com/trade-journals/mushrooms-at-  somerset-house-opens-spores/docview/2367437154/se-2. This essay describes a recent   exhibition that brings together the mushroom artwork inspiration of Potter, Twombly and   Cage.

Ghosh, Iman. “All the Biomass on Earth.” 2021, accessed July 15, 2024. https://nautil.us/all-the-  biomass-on-earth-238368/. I saw the image of the biomass of the earth during the seminar   talk given to fellows by Professor Paul Turner and learned that fungi can be considered   microbes and have greater mass on earth than all animals, including humans combined.

Handke, Peter, Matthias Harder, Mila Moschik, Toni Stooss, Tina Teufel, Peter Weiermair, and   Veit Ziegelmaier. Flowers & Mushrooms. München: Hirmer , 2013. This book is a   catalogue of an exhibition. It has plentiful examples of artworks of mushrooms in   different visual artforms forms teacher reference.

Jackson, P., & Forrester, P. (1993). The Pop-Up Book: Step-by-Step Instructions for Creating   Over 100 Original Paper Projects. New York: Henry Holt and Co. This book had   numerous examples of the possible pop-up projects teachers can use with their students for lesson 4.

Laessøe, Thomas., and Gary Lincoff. Mushrooms. 1st American ed. New York: DK Pub., 1998.   This is an extensive visual catalogue of mushroom specimens with color photographs and   information about them.

Lubowski-Jahn, Alicia. "Alexander von Humboldt: The Aesthetic Science of Landscape   Pictures." In Cartographic Expeditions and Visual Culture in the Nineteenth-Century   Americas, pp. 17-34. Routledge, 2020. This was a text given to our seminar, that was   read and analyzed together in class presentation on 5/3/2024. Humboldt’s book Cosmos  about the changing environment in the Andes mountains inspired the landscape paintings   of Thomas Cole who mentored Frederic Church. During the intensive we visited Olana   the home of Church in the Hudson River Valley and the home of Thomas Cole. This trip   gave me a deeper understanding of how stunning viewscapes of the Catskill mountains   and the Hudson River Valley   inspired them from their homes and studios .

Lum, Julia. 2018. “Fire-Stick Picturesque: Landscape Art and Early Colonial Tasmania.” British Art Studies (10). This was a seminar reading for the National Fellowship. Discussion of   this topic in seminar led to my learning the story of Mathinna and the mushroom named   after her.

O’Hagan, Sean. 2020. A Mushroom-Related Brush with Mortality: How John Cage Fell for   Fungi. London (UK): Guardian News & Media Limited.   https://www.proquest.com/blogs-podcasts-websites/mushroom-related-brush-with-  mortality-how-john/docview/2435339737/se-2. This text explains the unexpected   inspiration John Cage drew from mycology.

Rogers, Hannah Star. Art, Science, and the Politics of Knowledge. MIT Press, 2022. This is a   book about dynamic intersections between the fields of art and science.

Schofield, Leo. 2008. "Mathinna Lessons Resonate." The Mercury, Nov   08. https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/mathinna-lessons-  resonate/docview/352935584/se-2. This article describes how Mathinna was adopted by   the Franklins and a perspective on her life story’s impact today.

Sheldrake, Merlin. Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape   Our Futures. Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2021. This book has a plethora of   information about how integral fungi are to our world and the potential uses they contain.

Stamets, Paul. Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save The World. Berkeley: Ten   Speed Press, 2005. This is a scientific book that can help give teachers greater   understanding of mushroom qualities and uses.

Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in   Capitalist Ruins. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015. This book has a more cultural references about mushrooms for a global perspective in teaching the subject. It   also can give teachers context for understanding how the topic can be related to   economics and climate.

Venturella, Giuseppe, Valeria Ferraro, Fortunato Cirlincione, and Maria Letizia Gargano. 2021.   "Medicinal Mushrooms: Bioactive Compounds, Use, and Clinical Trials" International   Journal of Molecular Sciences 22, no. 2: 634. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms22020634. This   is a scientific review of the potential uses of mushrooms in cancer treatment.

Wainwright, L. S. "Cy Twombly." Encyclopedia Britannica, July 1, 2024.   https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cy-Twombly. (accessed July 5, 2024). This is an overview of the life of the American artist Cy Twombly.

Walls, Alissa A. "Cy Twombly and the Art of Hunting Mushrooms." American Art 28, no. 2   (2014): 50-69. This essay explains how Cy Twombly was inspired by Mushrooms and his   connection to the artist composer John Cage who was his colleague.

Wasson, R. Gordon. The Wondrous Mushroom: Mycolatry in Mesoamerica. New York:   McGraw-Hill, 1980. This is an anthropological text about cultural practices in   Mesoamerica with mushrooms.

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