To create prints, she uses a professional-grade plant press. The key, she says, is sourcing healthy specimens and drying them as fast as possible. “If you’re making beef jerky or dried fruit and just storing the meat or fruit on your counter without doing anything else to it, yes, it would rot, and, yes, it would smell terrible,” she explains. “But if you dry those things quickly, then you can preserve them for a really long time.” The result of this process are prints that capture the diverse structures, textures, and colors of California’s seaweed. They’re beautiful, to be sure—but they’re also educational. This is part of what Collens loves about her work. She gets to introduce people to the fascinating features of local marine plant life and help them identify species that they’d otherwise overlook. “People are often really surprised when they see my stu ff ,” she says. “They’re like, ‘Wait, this is all seaweed? I’ve never seen that before.’ I love that it’s something that’s so ubiquitous, that I’m just helping people to recognize that it’s right under their feet.”
47 SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE
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