Image 4
Elsie Burkman, (1912-2004)
720 Front Street, 1969
Mushroom ink on paper
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, gift of the Rasmuson Foundation, 1971.234.10ab
During the 1960s, Washington-based artist Elsie Burkman traveled throughout the west coast of North America, sketching and painting the landscape. She worked primarily in pencil and watercolor, but mushroom collecting and identification was her hobby, leading her to make a series of works with “mushroom juice” from ink cap mushrooms (Coprinopsis atramentaria).