Story behind the art of Carol Woodin

Curious Allies: Mutualism in Fungi, Parasites, and Carnivores

The Fifth New York Botanical Garden Triennial

Yellow-stalked Puffball, Gambrill State Park, MD

Calostoma lutescens

I was visiting my brother and his family in Maryland last winter, and he has become quite the fungus stalker. He spends a great deal of time in Gambrill State Park, near their home, and has compiled an impressive list of fungi he’s seen there. He let me know he’d seen this very unusual yellow puffball up at the park, and he and my husband went up there and found some more of them. So of course I had to go see it. It was in January, and while there was no snow, it was still very cold and surprising that such a delicate and colorful fungus would be fruiting at that time.

Once I saw it, I knew I’d have to paint it. It was a winter landscape all around, not much was green, and the leaves were down. But there were isolated pockets of mosses and in the middle of one were these golden puffballs. The small vignette seemed otherworldly. I sat down and made a graphite study, then did some color studies as well. I came back another time later in the month and found a few more, and really looked at their structure while gathering more information for my sketches. They’re so weird; the stalks look like lichens, and the puffballs themselves start out with a crust around them that flakes off and falls to the ground. Once the crust falls off, it reveals a soft, rubbery golden puffball, and when you squeeze it the pollen comes out through the bright orange aperture in the top. They look like miniature smoking chimneys.

I couldn’t find much information about this species, except that it is mycorrhizal with oaks, that it mainly appears in the fall or winter, and has been found from Massachusetts to Arkansas. It leaves you in awe of the oddities that nature creates to fill some mysterious ecological niche.

I was hoping to find something colorful and unusual to paint for Curious Allies. This fit the bill. I wanted to show the whole little vignette of green moss, oak forest detritus, and yellow orbs on their licheny stalks. The painting is a watercolor on vellum that I’ve stretched over a panel.

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Read more about this artist's work: 26th Annual