Mushroom Foraging with John Cage
The great American composer John Cage once wrote, “I have come to the conclusion that much can be learned about music by devoting oneself to the mushroom.”
John Cage Foraging for mushrooms, from William Gedney.
He was an amateur mycologist throughout his life, and this summer, his writings about fungi will be re-released in a gorgeous collection, John Cage: A Mycological Foray.
Decades after the book was published in an enormous format, Atelier Éditions will bring out a reprint that readers can enjoy.
Atelier Éditions is a limited-edition publishing house that specializes in archival monographs, contemporary art books, and exploratory printed matter.
One section of the book is printed on environmental Cartamela paper, a product derived from the industrial waste of apple processing.
This section pays homage to Cage’s 1990 art series, Edible Drawings, illustrations created on paper that could be recycled as food.
Cage used mushrooms for food while living as a starving artist in Carmel during the Depression.
“I didn’t have anything to eat … So I picked one of the mushrooms and went in the public library and satisfied myself that it was not deadly, that it was edible, and I ate nothing else for a week.”