ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 7, 1996 TAG: 9601110001
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-16 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: FLOYD
SOURCE: OLIVIA SHORTER SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
MEMO: ran in Neighbors on Feb. 8, 1996
Fungus.
It's usually found on dank locker-room floors, in refrigerators that desperately need to be cleaned, or in the deep, dark recesses of the forest.
Penny Lane Haase wants you to find it in the deep, dark recesses of your jewelry box.
Haase creates earrings, necklaces, brooches and ornamental pieces from bracket fungus.
This type of earthy-toned, fan-shaped fungus grows on dead or dying trees and comes in many shapes and sizes. Haase selects the smallest, most delicate pieces to make her jewelry.
"The neat thing about them is they become stable like flowers when you dry them. They have some of the properties of wood I believe, because they are sturdy and stable like wood," Haase said as she repositioned her glasses.
Her jewelry making process is time-intensive.
After spending several hours searching for the perfect fungi, Haase spends several days preparing them for decoration.
The fungi are dried, frozen, and boiled. Most are drained and shaped between books until they lie flat.
Some pieces are so uniquely shaped that Haase preserves them naturally and decides how they should be decorated to accommodate their beauty.
One of her ridged pieces is tinged pink and complemented with a tiny rosebud. White baby's breath and dried green fern adorn a brooch in keeping with the natural theme. Although the fungus is colored, you can still see its natural rings, which Haase has enhanced with a red colored pencil.
She often adds shades of amber, blue, green, gold or silver pencil or paint to the fungus so it blends with the brilliantly colored peacock, pheasant, or parakeet feather tip that provides the finishing touch to her necklace and earring sets.
When her alchemy is complete, Haase has transformed fungus and feather into a shimmery, metallic piece of rare jewelry.
Although artwork has always been one of her hobbies, she never dreamed it would become her occupation.
A transplant from Illinois, Haase worked as a bookkeeper for 20 years in a suburb of Chicago, feeling something was missing from her life.
"I searched the whole time, I had sort of an obsession, I knew that I wanted to do something else," Haase said.
When her son moved to Floyd County to work on a farm, she said she was slightly envious. "I remember thinking he's got his whole life ahead of him, and he was encouraging and said we would really like it here. We were sort of looking for a change, too, our kids were grown. We came to visit and fell in love with the area."
About nine months later, Haase and her husband moved to Floyd, and Haase began searching for a new career.
"When I was walking through the woods one day, I saw these things on a stump, and it's my habit to really look closely at the natural world. So I picked a piece off, and I thought it would look good as an earring. It was right around Christmas, and I thought of it as a Christmas present, sort of."
The "things" were bracket fungus, and for the next four months, Haase perfected her art. A friend gave her the idea of attaching the feathers to the jewelry, and her son and husband also pitched in their thoughts.
Elizabeth Stucki, whom Haase describes as her mentor, helped her make the jewelry more durable.
"The first time I saw her product, I just knew she had something that was going to take off. I think she has a wonderful eye for detail," Stucki said.
Now, close to three years later, Haase sells her creations to about 20 stores on the East Coast, including the New Mountain Mercantile in Floyd and Roanoke, the Gallery of Local Artists in New River Valley Mall, Seeds of Light in Roanoke, and Matrix Gallery in Blacksburg.
She also exhibits her jewelry at craft shows.
"Some people recognize it, and a lot of people are looking at it and they say 'I know what this is, but I can't place it.' A few people will laugh at it and go, 'You want to wear fungus in your ears?' and they just don't get it, you know? But that's only about 5 percent, the rest of the people have a nice, enjoyable reaction to it."
Moving to Floyd has been a change for Haase, but she believes that trading in her 9-to-5 bookkeeping job in Chicago was for the best.
"I feel like I've been let out of jail, you know, office work didn't suit me really, it was boring and routine," she said. "I don't want to put down anyone who's doing it, but for me, I don't have to punch a clock, I can do things in the middle of the day, I can make my own schedule. I've learned to follow my intuitive, creative side and that's where the fun is."
LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: GENE DALTON/Staff. 1. (no caption) ran on NRV-1. 2.by CNBPenny Lane Haase fashions jewlery out of bracket fungus, found on
old logs. 3. Fungus earrings made by Penny Lane Haase, who moved to
Floyd from Illinois where she worked as a bookkeeper for 20 years.
4. Haase (above) makes most of her jewelry in the corner of her
small house in Floyd. 5. A colorful broach (left) sits among fungus'
that has attached to a rotting log. 6. After drying, freezing,
boiling, draining and pressing the fungus, they are painted a
variety of colors before being fashioned into jewelry. color.