Preservation Press

Preservation Press

Anne and Hannah Venable Revel in the Creative Magic of Dried Botanicals

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

In college, Anne C. Venable was a flower thief. “I was stealing them,” said the founder of Preservation Press, laughing. “If I was just riding around town on my bike, I would just stop and pick flowers.”

At the time, Anne was studying Exercise Science at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and was just pressing flowers as a hobby—“I saw something in a magazine, and I couldn’t afford it, so I just started learning the trade.” She said she remembers sitting at home on Friday nights with two computer monitors open to Youtube videos demonstrating different techniques, taking notes. “I just found it so fascinating. I was so intrigued that I just wanted to learn, learn, learn.”

Over a decade later, Anne’s initial curiosity has turned into a full-blown botanical preservation business with four employees, five hand-made flower presses, and a brand-new retail space in Downtown Lafayette.

Artwork by Hannah Venable. Image courtesy of Preservation Press.

Anne’s very first employee was her wife, Hannah Venable—who is now a vital part of the business as the Lead Designer of Preservation Press. “Hannah was born to do flower work,” said Anne. “She is a true talent in this business, and it shows. Whenever she started dabbling, I was like ‘Wow, you’re really good’—her little razor blades, just cutting and trimming. I’m still fascinated when I watch her.”

Leading me through their new location on Vermilion Street, the couple reveled in the sheer space it offers—with designated rooms for each step of the process and a stunning, high-ceilinged retail area. When I visited, they were still getting things set up, but the exposed brick wall was already adorned from floor to ceiling in Preservation Press’s signature mixed-media pieces: flower pelicans, alligators, ballerinas, and even a sweet rose petal pig— interspersed with minimalist herbarium boards centering a palmetto frond, a fern, a single orange poppy. The process begins in the temperature-regulated press room, which features Anne’s custom wooden presses, which were hand-crafted by her father in five different sizes. With the exception of a rogue petal sticking out here and there, the room is filled almost to the ceiling with what appears to be stacks of paper and cardboard. “What we do is we kind of deconstruct everything by petal, and then place them in the paper,” said Anne. “Then you wrap it around the cardboard and put it in the press. We change the paper every Monday, Wednesday, Friday over the course of like six to eight weeks, depending on the type of flowers.”

Pressing, at its simplest form, is a process of removing water from flowers. The paper changes ensure that moisture content is as low as possible as the flowers are squeezed flat, a particular challenge in humid South Louisiana. The general rule of thumb for pressing is two to three weeks, but to ensure the best possible results, Anne and Hannah keep flowers in the press for six to eight.

After the flowers are fully dehydrated, they are moved to “Hannah’s Room,”—the “design territory, as I like to call it,” said Anne. The magic takes place on a drafting table, where Hannah spends most of her days recreating bridal bouquets in the two dimensional and transforming funeral flowers into bluebirds. Once she has arranged the hundreds of delicate petals in a way that the client is happy with, she sweeps them off of the drafting paper to begin the final process of reconstruction. Picking up a stray peony petal, she points out how thin it is—“I use backings that I cut out and glue to every single petal before laying it down for the final arrangement,” Hannah said. A peony, mind you, can have up to one hundred petals to layer on top of one another in order to recreate the flower. “It’s definitely a very delicate, very tedious process,” she added.

“I think it is undervalued by a lot of people,” said Anne. “They don’t realize quite the level of intensity and attention to detail that this art form requires, and the time.” This spirit of careful craft carries through to the very end of the process, to the framing area—where Anne offers custom framing for each and every piece.

Though weddings and funerals are Preservation Press’s bread and butter—“We’re like deep in the funeral industry,” said Anne—both women continue to be creatively inspired, and challenged, by the art form’s range. “I’ve made like one thousand birds,” said Hannah. “Like I could do it in my sleep. I’m not even sure how I got into the birds. I just love tiny, very detail-intricate themes.” In her hands, leaves and flower petals re-emerge as butterflies, playing cards, Frida Kahlo, sugar skulls, and even Darth Vader.

For Anne, it still goes back to that initial fascination with the process of pressing. “The magic of it … seeing a flower go from three-dimensional to flattened,” she said. “I think it’s always so exciting taking the flowers out of the press and seeing how the colors turn out. I’m definitely still hanging on to that. Those little moments of magic in the press.”

Preservation Press will host a grand opening at their new location (118 W Vermilion Street Lafayette) at the end of March. For custom orders, visit preserve-press.com.