Since receiving her BFA from California College of the Arts in 2016, Elissa Callen has worked in horticulture and researched CA native plants, ornamental horticultural plants, fungi, and mineral pigments in order to informatively give back to her art practice of using natural material as color or medium. She grows and nurtures her own color in her garden and collects it in both the native landscape and urban areas. After collecting, the natural materials she uses are processed into ink, pigment, paper, or other form and then used as the staple material of her work. She currently lives in Oakland and works as an artist, educator, fine gardener, and landscape designer. See some of her work as a horticulturist here.