Abstract
The queer magic mushroom experience is an exploration of queer life, love, fashion, and fungi. This project was created to explore the queer psychedelic mushroom experiences of my own and other queer folks through the use of floral and fungal imagery, bright warping lines and colors, celestial and symbolic imagery, and queer themes in order to inspire other queers to explore their own life and identity through magic mushrooms.
The goal of this project was to create wearable and functional artworks including bandanas, two skirts, a quilt, and two pillows that can be utilized as proud symbols of queerness, both human and fungal. I wanted to create work that is as colorful, playful, joyful, and unique as the queer folks I’m trying to inspire. I chose bandanas and quilts because of their cultural history within the queer community (including bandana flagging and aids memorial quilts). A quilting technique was chosen to visually show how the queer community stitches itself together as a community as a whole, as well as by creating chosen families where we’re accepted as who we are, not what we’re supposed to be. Magic mushrooms were chosen because they share many qualities with queer folks; they have been demonized, made illegal, and tossed to the side.
Artist Statement
Mercury Baxley (they/he) is a queer, nonbinary illustrator and printmaker based in Portland, Oregon who loves creating work in a psychedelic style full of bright colors, mushrooms, nature, sex positivity, and queer themes. They create work for other queer folks and all of the characters are queer and nonbinary or trans. They are inspired by the beautiful, queer world around them and they want to share that joy with others.