Photo by Adam Bird

Meet Ashley Lieber. Ecological artist hunting moss in Michigan.

“Right now I have lichen from Finland, and other tree lichen from the Pacific Northwest. I have stuff from Brazil, Chile and Norway. I have only begun to harvest lichen in our bioregion. I felt it essential that I was educated on what I was harvesting. Surprisingly, our bioregion – the Midwest – has endangered lichen that are really rare, and they’re absolutely sensational. A lot of them tend to grow on decaying apple trees, which is really interesting.”

“The lichen I’m harvesting now have been ground lichen. I literally have gone into open fields where there must have been 2,000 pounds of – a mile wide, for as far as you can see. It’s exciting that I’m able to do some of the gathering on my own now.”

Photo by Adam Bird

Photo by Cate Dabney

Some of the pieces I’ve made have included moss from three or four continents, so it’s really exciting for me to see how they come together.

Photo by Adam Bird