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Graduate Studies Division
Art Department
MFA Student | Teaching Assistant
Ecological Artist; Horticulturist
Environmental Art and Social Practice
Graduate
Art Department
Elissa Callen is an ecological artist using natural pigments sustainably made from invasive plant species to engage the public with their environments and educate them about the circular importance of biodiversity. Her research is rooted in California ecology, anthropogenic influences exacerbating biodiversity loss, and how people of different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds are affected variably. She is interested in using her work to strengthen community interest in environmentalism, support vulnerable communities against climate issues, and advocate for native landscape conservation. Influenced by the experiences of her biracial identity, her work embraces intersections as methodology for bridging disparate gaps between academia and the general public.
She has taught nearly 30 workshops statewide from 2023-2025 with institutions including California College of the Arts, Fibershed, Point Reyes National Seashore, Theodore Payne Foundation, and numerous mycological societies. She has also guest lectured at UC Berkeley and Laney College, and was a speaker at the 2024 California Invasive Plant Council Symposium. She comes from a professional background as a horticulturist and landscape designer, is a current board member of Sonoma County Mycological Association, and has a BFA from California College of the Arts.
- Natural dyes and pigments (gathered)
- Plant identification (California native, invasive, ornamental spp.)
- California ecology
- Sustainability, circular practices
- Horticulture
• Environmental conservation, justice, and policy
• California ecology
- Biodiversity, botany
- Endangered and threatened native plant spp.
- Native and invasive plant relationships, invasive plant ecology
- Climate change, native species adaptation challenges and outlooks
- Indigenous stewardship
• Extraction sites and new/pending projects
- Anthropogenic impact on sensitive native habitats, environmental negligence
- Exploitation of vulnerable human communities
• California history (~1800-present):
- Short- and long-term impacts of colonialism
- Gold Rush, Industrial Revolution, urbanization
- Extraction projects and sites
- Anthropogenic landscape shifts and environmental succession
- Indigenous history
- Migration history
• Mexican-American/Mexican/Latin American studies
- Mexican Repatriation Act
- Generational impacts of violence/trauma/assimilation pressures in the US borderlands
- Identity loss, amnesia, abandonment of cultural/family heritage
• Community Engagement
- Stimulating, accessible, and rewarding education on environmental issues for communities most vulnerable to them
- Resourcing for vulnerable human communities, sensitive native habitats via amplification, education, crowd sourcing
- Interdisciplinary pedagogy
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