Lydia Hansen crochets mushrooms the way a naturalist would sketch them: with an eye trained on the species that actually grow underfoot in southeastern Minnesota, not the flashiest specimens a search engine might surface. Based in Rochester, the fiber artist has spent roughly fourteen years developing her craft, moving from amigurumi stuffed animals sold at markets toward large-scale, textural work that borrows compositional instincts from painting, woodworking, and collage after practicing crochet and fiber art in the region for over a decade. Her breakout public project, the Lost Creek Fungi Hunt, placed roughly fifteen life-size crocheted fungi along a trail near Chatfield, transforming a routine walk into something closer to a field guide brought to life with true-to-scale crochet models of native mushroom species installed along the Lost Creek Hiking Trail east of Chatfield.
What distinguishes Hansen’s practice is the discipline she imposes on herself. Rather than reaching for the most photogenic or exotic fungi on record, she restricts each installation to species that genuinely occur in the surrounding woodland, using the sculptures to redirect attention toward what’s already there rather than what’s rare or spectacular. Materials matter to that ethic, too: she works primarily with secondhand and donated yarn, temporarily fixing each piece to dead wood with staples, screws, or stakes so the installations can be removed without disturbing the forest floor. The tactile, three-dimensional quality of crochet lets her mimic organic textures with unusual precision, and she has extended that sensory logic into gallery settings as well, encouraging people to touch her sculptural work rather than observe it at a distance.
This year’s iteration of the project, now called Fungi Hunt, runs through October 31 at Eagle Bluff Environmental Learning Center in Lanesboro, supported by a grant from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council that also funded interpretive signage developed with naturalist Tanner Barnharst. Hansen has described the wider effort as “experiential fiber art,” a practice built to counter the unreliability of casual internet research with accurate, on-site information about the fungi hikers encounter. She’s already planning her largest hunt yet, spanning three parks in Olmsted County next summer, alongside a curated group exhibition on fungi at Kouba Gallery in Bloomington.
More info: Website, Instagram (h/t: Colossal).
in Bahia.