Sculpting Fine Art from Hemp and Mycelium
Some of our hemp hurd ends up in hempcrete or animal bedding. Some of it becomes fine art.
Nora Chavooshian is a sculptor in New Jersey who works with a living collaborator. She grows mycelium, the root network of fungi, on our 2mm hemp hurd powder, then casts it into intricate sculptures. The hemp hurd is the growing medium that feeds the whole process.
She has tried other options and keeps coming back to ours. In her words, she hasn’t found anything better than our 2mm hemp hurd powder as a growing medium for the mycelium she sculpts with.
Her mycelium pieces are more than experiments. Nora draws on the growth patterns of mycelial networks to explore ancestral memory, cultural resilience, and the ways communities hold each other together. The way mycelium reaches out and links up mirrors those themes, and she treats the organism as a partner in the work rather than just a material.
Nora studied sculpture at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the San Francisco Art Institute. Alongside her studio work she spent years as an award-winning stage and film production designer, building sculptural sets and large-scale set pieces, before turning her full attention to sculpture on the East Coast.
Her work has been exhibited widely across the United States and is held in private and public collections in both the U.S. and Europe.
We are proud that something as simple as powdered hemp hurd helps grow work like this. From a bag of hurd to a living sculpture, this one is a favorite.
