Pictures made of ... fungi

The walls of Tamara Lysenko’s apartment in Vinnytsia are hung with eye-pleasing fragments of natural scenes, wonderful birds and beasts, and heroes of fairy tales—all made of bracket fungi, plants that grow on tree trunks. Lysenko took up this hobby nine years ago. Along with embroidery and playing the guitar, it fills all her free time.

She stumbled upon this unusual floral art quite accidentally. At the time, she was working as a teacher at a kindergarten, and, when the weather was warm, she would frequently go for a walk with children in the forest park located nearby. One of the children once paid attention to a big mushroom that “took a seat” on a stump of a rotten linden. It consisted of numerous small mushrooms and resembled a wood goblin from a fairy tale. While the children were having dinner, she washed this goblin, made a moss moustache and beard for him, and placed him on a board. The boys and girls met with their forest find again, and their joy had no limits.

Upon retirement Tamara gave many of her works to kindergarten No. 46 where she worked, sold some, and gave some to her friends as a gift. Lysenko frequently receives invitations to exhibits: there is no other person in Vinnytsia, or even entire Ukraine, who would be active in this art.