S.Na Clear, who is still in early August, Sam Shomeker launched the kayak boats in the water off the island of Catalina and started rowing. Its goal: passing the open ocean to San Pedro, south of Los Angeles, about 26.4 miles.
But at a closer look, the kayak boats in Xleaker were not regular kayak boats. The yellow color and the brown beard in the texture, made-or rather, have grown-completely from mushrooms. If his journey, if you succeed, you will celebrate the longest trip in the world open in the kayak boats that were built from this unique material.
With his phone, the GOPRO, Walkie Talkie and Compass camera on his life jacket, left the shoe maker shortly before 6 am to avoid the worst swelling of prediction. But three hours in his arrival during the ninth mile, the coastal line is still out of view, and Shomeker began to feel dizzy.
Suddenly, the sound of a large animal violated the water. To his left, the sole of the sole of the sole of its shiny tail, then slowly delayed behind it. When the 50 -foot creature followed him for another three miles, Shomeker found the power to end the first trip.
“It was like a narcotic experience,” says about the 12 -hour crossing.
When he found the beach with his mushroom boats, he is still intact, the artist and fungi embraced his friends and family. All of them were hoping that this journey would enter into a new wave of curiosity about the non -traditional fungus, in which Schumker and others argue as a more suitable option for the environment than plastic that is widely used in boats and other water entertainment.
From the walls of the exhibition to the opening of the sea
Shomeker began his career as an artist who made sculptures with widespread mushrooms. Upon returning to Los Angeles after graduating from Yale with MFA in 2020, he began to showcase artwork that captured the unique behavior of the fungus during its inception Ceramic ships are handcrafted and vaginal glass.
In the end, his interests grew beyond the walls of the exhibition. Shoemaker now belongs to a small community of scientists and artists who explore the potential of innate innovation as alternative materials that can be used in everything from boats and signs to ski plates.
Their concentration is on mycelium – the yarch network that supports the growth of fungi and mushrooms. Although it tends to do its unity underground or in the substrate, it is a central connective tissue in the animal kingdom. Fungi -based materials are known in a water context as Aquafung, a term formulated by Shoemaker Phil Ross, an artist and co -founder of a vital technology company called mycoworks that engineers depend on myCelium including A. Mushroom “leather” Which can be used in furniture, handbags and biomedical equipment. After postponing mycoworks, Ross also opened an open source fungi research laboratory at Stanford University called Open Fung.
Ross argues that Aquaffung has many attractive properties such as plastic – such as being lightweight and light – but without a harmful fingerprint. Ross says: “People hate plastic stereovom in water wash on the beach,” says Ross. “[AquaFung] It is a decomposing. He behaves a lot like the materials that everyone seems to hate. “
The shoe maker started working on the first Mycelium boat in 2024 with Wild Wild Ganoderma Polychromum Mycelium Outside his studio, Los Angeles. He modified the used fishing boats to serve as a fiberglass template, then the fungi network fell inside the mold, which carries more than 300 pounds of the fertilized hemp to support agriculture. After deploying MyCelium for about four weeks, the shoe maker dried up with the resulting kayak boat boat Brown using fans for several months.
After custody, dried fungi show a strong rabid substance. On the touch, it looks rough and durable, like Cork. It does not maintain the same consistency in color and texture all the time – a testimony on the brutality of mushrooms.
Endemic of the initial model, Shomeker began searching for appropriate support.
Shomeker Patrick Reed, Secretary of the Arts Organization, met with Qadina Partistic point artsIn December 2023 through joint friends. After visiting the studio, Reed was bombed by everything the artist had to show him, and he recalls his pride in his conversation as “incredibly exciting and stimulating.” It is compatible with the Fulcrum Arts mission to support artists who follow social change at the intersection of art and science, and the husband entered into official cooperation in early 2024.
Shomeker completed the second mushroom boat in June. I slept from the same wilderness Ganoderma Polychromum MyCelium, the kayak boats have been published on more than 520 lbs of the solid substance that is packed inside the new fiberglass template. Shomeker allowed the boat to grow for six weeks, then it took another three months to dry it. In 107 pounds, the shortest new kayak boats with three feet, but 50 % larger in size for more floating and stability. She also appeared on a model to improve tracking and hardness.
Aquavong lover community, who extend from fungi, artists, hunters, farmers and amateurs alike, is strong but emerging. The completion of the Xiakar boat is the second mushroom boat that was ever tested for water to be made after Katie Airez, who holds Guinness World Register For growth, then the test, what was then the longest funny boat in the world on Lake Nebraska in 2019.
“Many people did not think it was possible,” says Airez, whose boat has grown after she was inspired by a documentary called Super Fungi. ))
The future is … mushroom?
Ayers and Shoemaker are attributed to fungi pioneers like Ross to make technology easier. Al -Fitr -based materials began slowly appearing in the main current: In 2021, Stella McCartney occupied the headlines with the launch of the first clothes ever in the world made of mushroom leather grown in the laboratory, in consultation with Ross.
Ross describes Sam’s journey as “wonderful”, and hopes that other scientific institutions will inspire this work more seriously. “[Sam] Have you done so before Stanford and Caltec, and this happened in the backyard. This entire field is led by designers and artists, not because they are the best scholars, but they realize the future in front of everyone. “
But Shomeker warned of promises that mushrooms will revolutionize the industry so far. It indicates that it requires time and resources for a year to produce only the kayak boats, which are still slower and heavier than the kayak boats that you bought in a store.
People talk about mushrooms being this utopian future, where plastic problems disappear, [but] “This is not the silver bullet where the boats are easier,” he says.
Currently, he plans to continue dialogue with other artists and fungi and amateurs, and make an open source summary, with more than 70 pages of research, methodology and plans, available to the public. A complete exhibition of its ports and the kayak boats will be held in the Fuchs Arts area in Pasadina in October.
“There is possible that there is a 19 -year -old child who thinks he” can do that, “says Schomeker. “The biggest compliment they can pay for me is to go and build a better boat and try to cross more ambitious than me.”
After the success of Shoemaker, Ayers also see hope for a more innate future.
“I have been waiting for another person to do this for years yet. The first thing I thought when my boat came out is,” Please someone tried to overcome this record because this gives me a reason to try again, “she says.