For many artists who are invited to exhibit work at the Arnold Arboretum, the collections and landscape become a focus and rich cornucopia of form and even fancy. For some, like Madge Evers, it is much more. The Arboretum becomes a laboratory, even a studio, a repository brimming with the media she incorporates into her awe-inspiring prints—the fungi and their subsequent spores.
Working not only with exhibitions, but with the Arboretum’s curation department, Evers submitted a proposal in March 2020 to begin collecting. March 2020 being the beginning of COVID-19 restrictions, our curatorial assistant, Kathryn Richardson, was being very selective about issuing collecting permits. Evers, however, was given the go ahead for her well conceived proposal. Richardson herself has a special interest in fungi, which she wrote about in her 2009 Arnoldia article “A Closer Look at Fungi”.
Over the course of the next year, Evers was able to visit the Arboretum, collecting an assortment of mushrooms and adding their countless spores to her art. Along with the mushrooms, she collected other Arboretum plant materials. The resulting exhibition is lush with otherworldly light and shape. There is almost the sense of a kaleidoscope opening up with limited hues, but unlimited iterations of the nuanced disbursement of those spores upon a field of leaves and flowers.
She has indeed planted her own stories in a rarefied environment where the almost hidden become the abiding mystery, delight, and revelation of this new herbarium. To view the virtual exhibition, available through February 6, visit https://arboretum.harvard.edu/art_shows/hidden-worlds-a-new-herbarium/
For a detailed list of the plants incorporated into the prints, visit here: Hidden World Spore Prints.
All artworks are mushroom spores on paper. Evers is an educator, gardener, and visual artist. She uses foraged mushrooms and plants to make works on paper that focus on regeneration. Her work has been shown in New England and New York. In June of 2020, she began to work full-time as an artist after teaching for 25 years in Rhode Island and Massachusetts public schools. She now conducts art-making workshops for people of all ages.
All rights of the images reside with the artist. For more information on making a copy, or reusing an image, please send your request to arbweb@arnarb.harvard.edu. For information on the work itself, or to inquire about purchasing art, please also send your request to arbweb@arnarb@harvard.edu. We will put you in touch with the artist.
