Our last Kick-About inspired new works made in a short time exploring the wide, unbounded expanses of Mark Rothko’s paintings. This week, the Kick-Abouters turn their attentions to the weird and wonderful world of slime moulds. For all previous editions of The Kick-About, click here.
Tony Reeves
“I feel like I’ve learned a lot about slime mould in putting this together! The thing that really stuck with me after watching some videos about slime mould was the regular ‘pulse’ as the mould expands and contracts. This gave me the idea for some kind of pulsating low frequency sound, and each time the sound peaks things grow out of it. This required some pretty heavy compression, with the bass compression triggering the compressors on other sounds.“
Phil Gomm
“Just a simple, straight-forward thing from me this week; I just loved the jewellery-like aesthetic of some of these beautiful slime moulds, so I sourced some glass-headed pins and a slice of olive wood and amassed my own colonies.”
Jan Blake
“The weather has been too nice recently to stay indoors inspecting the microscopic beauty of Slime Molds so Iwent to seek inspiration at our Botanic Garden. I have long been fascinated by plants that are prehistoric and still with us. They have a similarity to Slime Molds as they are simple but curious in their structure and they spread like crazy if you are not careful. So here they are in situ and in their springtime state before they become the horses tail with tassels of green splaying out from each of these pink and green sections.”
Phil Cooper
“What a fascinating prompt. I confess I didn’t really look into what slime mould actually is, but I did look at lots of images of this strange and slightly sinister stuff. I loved the shapes of the fruiting bodies, so that’s where I’ve gone with my response this week. I drew out some simple bobbly shapes, then cut them up and reassembled them together, finally adding a couple of architectural elements to make a sort of giant slime mould garden. I felt a strong pull to go into horror movie territory with this one but managed to resist….this time!”
Charly Skilling
If ever a Kick-About cried out for a full room installation, it was this one! Can you imagine the sensory delights of an entire room, coated in flexible spongey, textured materials in every colour, with surfaces ranging from rubbery smoothness to bristling matting – and a forest of pods and spores to navigate? Well, that wasn’t going to happen, was it? So, instead, I spent several days with papier-mache, PVA glue, paint, plastic balls and more PVA… and had a really lovely time!
Tom Beg
“My general approach was ‘slime mold looks cool, so try to make some slime mold.’ In the end, I took inspiration from bonsai and Japanese flower arrangement because I found a certain charm in simplicity. It was as if the contradictory aesthetics made them seem both more real and more alien at the same time.”
X / earthlystranger / vimeo.com/tombeg / tombeg.com
James Randall
“I had no idea what slime moulds were so I did searches at both BBC and our ABC and there were podcast gems (Naturebang – Slime Mould and Problem Solving – BBC Sounds and The secret life of slime mould – ABC listen)… and aren’t they extraordinary little single celled bodies? Note their ability to chart a course (yes across space!) Then I did an image search to see what they looked like. One of the images was of wolf milk slime mould, which I had taken a picture of whilst trekking around the Rockies in Canada many moons ago – pretty little pink spheres that I thought were fungi at the time. I also recently trekked around Brisbane taking pics. Some were of hoardings (yes a favourite topic of mine) where A4 signage had been glued on then ripped off – leaving remarkably star-like remnant shapes. There were also graffiti tags on the hoardings. I took a pic of a building car park entrance with lots of yellow directional shapes. So obviously I had to combine these bits to portray a trip through the stars guided by the wolf milk. Amongst the above I added some trip/astral line work (kind of).”
Graeme Daly
“I can’t remember what this method of painting is called but it brought me back to my childhood, seeing the serendipitous results of the blobs of paint after folding the paper out. Things really became exciting when I held one of the outputs up to my studio lamp to study it, as the venation and colours became so much more vivid with the light illuminating behind it. I managed to create a makeshift light box, similar to old animation techniques, by removing the padded cushion from a dining chair and placing the glass of a picture frame over that, and then the painting on top, with a couple of lights underneath.”
@graemedalyart / vimeo.com/graemedaly / linkedin.com/in/graeme-daly / twitter.com/Graeme_Daly / gentlegiant.blog
Marion Raper
“At first glance when I saw the title Slime Mould I thought ‘Yuck – isn’t that what kids play with?’ However once I looked into it, I was completely amazed and astonished. I tried to do some embroidery to emulate these strange organisms. They seem like something from a horror movie, but maybe they are the good guys? Who knows? I feel that the incredible way that they behave could lead to some exciting discoveries in the future.”
Kerfe Roig
“The Nature Conservancy sent me a triangular bandana printed with leaves in a fundraising letter. I liked it, but I didn’t know what to do with it. It provided a perfect background to embroider my loose interpretation of slime mould with lots of french knots.“
kblog.blog / methodtwomadness.wordpress.com
And following the diminutive sprouts of slime moulds, next up are the monumental edifices of Albert Paley…
Red's Kingdom 
Leave a comment