Artists Bio

Erica Clark-Thompson was born and raised on Kodiak Island in the Gulf of Alaska, where she spent many of her formative years on the family’s commercial fishing boat, reluctantly providing child labor on their wooded acres, and building forts beneath a canopy of old growth Sitka Spruce trees. Her love of nature and enthusiasm for outdoor play was supported by her parents, who commercial fished with her up and down the Aleutian Peninsula. At 25 she moved to Cordova Alaska where she first encountered mushroom dyeing on a rainy September evening during the annual Fungus Festival. It was at the local yarn shop, the Net Loft, where she viewed a VHS tape of Miriam Rice dyeing fiber with mushrooms in the late 70’s.

As an environmental educator, she has worked with children from the Gulf of Alaska to the shores of Lake Superior. Erica is a mother to two human children, a flock of spoiled chickens and ducks, and too many bees to count. She has taught at the International Fungi & Fiber Symposium, has published several pieces of poetry, and holds a Masters of Education. She is a 4th generation commercial fisherman and subsistence gardener. Erica lives on traditional lands of the Clatsop Chinook people.