NATASHA GURULEVA sees herself as a queen of Mushroomland. Even her studio in New York City supports this statement: mushrooms look at you from the artwork on its walls, mushroom-appliquéd pillows pile on chairs, little fungi rise over a 3D mushroom blanket covering the bed, and if you sit down on a sofa mushroom couch companions (as she calls them) snuggle to you from everywhere. When she feels down she makes a mushroom and turns her dark moments into a “garden of joy and beauty.”

Natasha writes and illustrates children’s books (fairytales) where many characters are mushrooms. Together with their human friend, they explore different realms of nature – Flower Kingdom, Butterfly Empire, Underground Maze, Big Pond and so on. For the illustrations she uses photography placing the characters that she makes herself into the natural environment– in the forest, ponds and meadows of Long Island. The basic thread of her stories holds together beads-ideas about recognizing and appreciating life around us, life under our feet, treating everybody as equal and seeing ourselves as a part of the unity. Her books are about finding your place in the world while being different.

She also single-handedly created a feature film, based on her first story “Adventures of Little Herbert in Mushroom Land.” It’s made in an old-fashioned style of stop-frame animation. She built over 50 characters out of fabrics and wires and designed the sets in the woods (Forest Town, Mushroom House). She photographed every movement of those characters, then “photoshopped” each frame to get rid of supporting wires and make the mouths move. She also edited (digitally) the entire movie.