She picks up small pieces of coralline algae with tweezers, albeit slightly longer, and observes them with a bino.
She assembles her firescape, sorting each sample, creating a gigantic herbarium of vibrant, intense red.
She explains everything to me.
I love it.
Her big blue eyes, devouring those little bits of marine plants that have become associated with rocks, sponges, little crabs, herbariums.
Every day, different pinks, purples and reds vibrate in white plastic tubs.
Every day, a little bit the same, and never quite the same.
They draw a melody, together telling a story of visual coherence that I’ve rarely experienced.
And then, I pick up one of them, a specimen, whose collection number she has taken care to note down.
I settle uncomfortably, my back bent over a work surface.
A small watercolor case, two brushes, a sheet of paper.
Three times nothing.
And I paint these corallines.
I try to capture the vibrancy, texture, color and shape of these algae.
Why should I?
Why not.
For nothing.
Just for fun.
To try and reproduce what they inspire, what they do to me.
Without Line, seaweed just isn’t the same, and with her, through her eyes, I understand, I learn from seaweed.
You just have to be there, on deck three of the ship.
Waiting for the wave of specimens, the delicious ballet of colors courting me.
Doing nothing but letting it come, letting the luminous landscapes come together every day.

Elise Rigot