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Offering One

Quiet Fruit: Photographs

By Melinda Hurst Frye

Rooted in curiosity, Melinda Hurst Frye’s photographs intertwine science and art to explore partnerships and hint at the invisible.

 
Their beginnings are silent as their threads move through the soil beneath the surface. Stretching, seeking, and speaking a language that I do not hear. The cycle calls for a union with time, nearby roots, and the decay of the forest floor. As their fruits emerge, they will exhale their spores into the air to perform the process once more.

Quiet Fruit / October
Quiet Fruit / October
A collection of found fungi, mushrooms, and mosses from the family trail was composed on the scanner and left to release their spores for up to two days.

In the summer of 2020, I moved with my family to my childhood home, adjacent to Saint Edward State Park, outside of Seattle, Washington. I walk the same trails I explored as a child, but now with my children. Together, we forage, greet the ferns, and slow down to watch the changing light and smell the earth. We observe the shifting seasons, from mushrooms bursting on fallen logs to the forest’s simultaneous growth and decay. My photographs aim to capture the evolving ecology along the trail I’ve walked throughout my life—a trail that rises and falls with the seasons and nourishes the soil that grows the wonder that surrounds our family. The subjects in these photographs were found near this trail and brought into my studio to rest on a flatbed scanner and release their spores, sometimes over days.
 

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Mushroom and other items in a bowl outside

Mushrooms and leaves spread out on table

 
Rooted in curiosity, my work intertwines science and art to explore partnerships and hint at the invisible. Using the scanner as a camera, I hope to photograph what isn’t readily seen: the soil beneath the surface, the activities of the night, and how time might be perceived through the lens of the soil. The scanner’s slow, deliberate process allows me to observe with intent, contrasting with my usual frenetic pace. Each scan takes minutes to complete, requiring physical stillness and resulting in highly detailed images that reveal small surprises, natural patterns, and hidden exoskeletons. As the spores release and settle on the scanner glass, they visually map their path, echoing the entangled relationship of the understory’s ecology.

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Offering Three
Offering Three
A collection of found Candlesnuff fungi, mushrooms, and mosses from the family trail was composed on the scanner and left to release their spores for up to two days.
Quiet Fruit / June
Quiet Fruit / June
A collection of found mycelium on leaves and nearby mushrooms from the family trail composed on the scanner.

In our warming climate, the fruiting bodies provide evidence of the slow churning regeneration within the soil that takes the forest apart so it may become again.

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Mycelium
Mycelium
Mycelium on fallen (Alder?) leaves.
Quiet Fruit / December
Quiet Fruit / December
A collection of found fungi, mushrooms, and mosses from the family trail was composed on the scanner and left to release their spores for up to two days.

 

Black Forest
Black Forest*
* An exception (1/2) to the series, this is a grouping of cultivated mushrooms placed on the scanner to release their spores for up to two days.
Offering Two
Offering Two
A collection of found fungi, mushrooms, lichen, and mosses from the family trail was composed on the scanner and left to release their spores for up to two days.

  

Bleeding Heart Spore Shadow
Bleeding Heart Spore Shadow
Native Bleeding Hearts silhouette is created with the spores released from found Oyster mushrooms.
Offering Four
Offering Four
A collection of found fungi, mushrooms, lichen, and mosses from the family trail was composed on the scanner and left to release their spores for up to two days.

 

Licorice Fern Spore Shadow
Licorice Fern Spore Shadow
Native Licorice Fern silhouettes are created with the spores released from found Oyster mushrooms.
Miner’s Lettuce Spore Shadow
Miner’s Lettuce Spore Shadow
Native Miner’s Lettuce silhouettes are created with the spores released from found Oyster mushrooms.

  

Oysters
Oysters*
* An exception (2/2) to the series, this is a grouping of cultivated Oyster mushrooms placed on the scanner to release their spores for up to two days.
Offering Five
Offering Five
A collection of found fungi, mushrooms, lichen, and mosses from the family trail was composed on the scanner and left to release their spores for up to two days.

  

Exhale
Exhale
Fairy mushrooms growing from a fallen Maple tree from the family trail was placed on the scanner and left to release their spores for up to two days.
Offering One
Offering One
A collection of found fungi, mushrooms, lichen, and mosses from the family trail was composed on the scanner and left to release their spores for up to two days.

 


About the Artist

Melinda Hurst FryeMelinda Hurst Frye photographically celebrates the ecology of the forest floor with the goals of providing visual evidence of the cycles, bearing witness to the understory, and bridging the poetry of art with biological sciences.

Hurst Frye’s work has been featured in publications for both art and science, exhibitions, Microsoft Art Collection, King County Portable Works Collection, and other institutional collections. Hurst Frye holds an MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design, in Savannah, Georgia, and teaches regularly. Melinda lives with her family adjacent to an urban forest outside of Seattle, Washington, and is represented by J. Rinehart Gallery in Seattle, Washington.

Find more of Melinda Hurst Frye’s work at www.mhurstfrye.com.


 

This is the 11th of 11 contributions to the Climate Stories in Action series, in partnership with the Spring Creek Project at Oregon State University. The series runs from late May through early August 2024.

All images by Melinda Hurst Frye