Name: Mushroom Magic: Spells For Collective Hope: Meet the Artist, Reception with Jessica Langley
Start: 2026-08-15T18:00:00-0600
End: 2026-08-15T20:00:00-0600

SCHEDULE LAUNCH IS JUNE 21st, 2026

Welcome to the largest wild mushroom happening in North America, the 46th Annual Telluride Mushroom Festival! This program of the Telluride Institute, a 501c3 non-profit, offers a plethora of events ranging from foray and mushroom ID sessions, to hands-on demonstrations and lectures—all led by regionally, nationally, and internationally-known experts, (and we cannot forget the wide variety of social and cultural events offered, along with the famous Mushroom Parade!) there is plenty for everyone, every day.

On this website, you can filter your search by events, venues, presenters, etc. Each year the Mushroom Festival features many wonderful presentations on “all things fungi.” Presentations on similar topics are grouped together at the same venue so that attendees interested will be able to spend more time learning and interacting, and less time walking between venues. See who else is interested in each event and interact with our extended Mushroom Family.

See you soon!

Mushroom Magic: Spells For Collective Hope: Meet the Artist, Reception with Jessica Langley

Saturday August 15, 2026 6:00pm - 8:00pm MDT

Ah Haa School - Curiosity Shop @ 155 West Pacific Avenue, Telluride, CO, USA

Meet the Artist, Reception Saturday 6-8pm: Jessica Langley
Mushroom Magic: spells for collective hope
“Art is not an object, but an act.”
- Nikki de Saint Phalle

These works are spells cast amidst an apocalyptic simulacra, where the boundary between the real and the virtual has grown porous. In a moment when our shared images, maps, and screens reshape what we call “real,” I make work that tries to move us toward repair rather than resignation.

The material origin of this work is the landscape. Mushrooms foraged in the Colorado mountains are processed into a handmade paper. The surface is textured, lumpy, and imperfect. I paint with gouache, watercolor, and ink, composing sigils: intentional, ritual drawings activated by touch, attention, and context. In the sculptural collages, the mushroom paper is mounted onto upcycled polystyrene with drawings that reference networks, doodles, and paths of wandering suggesting an interplay between indeterminacy and relationality. Their objecthood can be sensed; their power is enacted through shared hope and care.

My process is a kind of field practice. Foraging is guided by instinct and close observation rather than a fixed plan; it is a slow, attentive way to encounter a place, and opens possibilities for discovery and renewal. Mycology has sharpened how I look at landscape and led me to consider fungi not only as material but as agents in ecological repair. This practical knowledge informs my methods and motivates a commitment to sustainable materials and new narrative frames for the climate crisis.

Accompanying these works on paper are a series of playful ceramic illuminated sculptures which bring our attention to darkness and light. Each of these subjects points to a hidden world: mushrooms that stink, spiders that play dead, or a coiled snake ready to strike. Each of these simply a representation of what they are as well as a reference to sexuality and sensuality. They question our presumptions of good/evil and present a softer, more nuanced approach to this prevailing dichotomy.

Across my work I aim to decenter the human subject in conversations about landscape, to complicate simple binaries of abstraction versus representation, and to show how cultural symbols of nature are experienced directly and through mediated images. These pieces invite viewers to notice materials, to consider interdependence, and to imagine futures shaped by care, repair, and adaptability.

For more information:
Ah Haa School for the Arts

Speakers

Jessica Langley

Artist

Jessica Langley (b. 1981, USA) is an interdisciplinary artist, somatic sex & relationship practitioner, earth medicine mentor, and amateur mycologist. Langley is based in Colorado where she an active member of the Pikes Peak Mycological Society and facilitates platonic intimacy experiences... Read More →

Saturday August 15, 2026 6:00pm - 8:00pm MDT
Ah Haa School - Curiosity Shop

FREE - Open to public, art

46th Telluride Mushroom Festival

Jessica Langley

Attendees (62)

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46th Telluride Mushroom Festival

Jessica Langley

Attendees (62)

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