Photographs by Josie Iselin
Harry Abrams, New York, N.Y. 2006
144 pp. $16.95
Icons in Stone
There are two kinds of beachcombers in the world: those who prowl the arcuate linear expanses of sandy beaches looking for shells and egg cases and those who two-step on shaky ankles along rocky beaches, while waves roll and tumble their constituents.
For the hard stone beachcomber, few can resist the temptation to sort first by eye and then by feel to find that perfect stone to retrieve from a remote shore. These finds become icons — the perfect way to pocket the perfection of the experience and then listen to their memories. Stones speak an ancient language in the silent tongue of magic. Heart stones, ring stones, egg stones, round stones, skipping stones, holed stones, runic stones — they all have their stories and symbolism, much of it holy.
Beach Stones is a lovely, lovely book, which like its subject, you will be unable to resist. The photographs by installation artist Josie Iselin, shot against immaculate white or opaque ebony backgrounds immediately elevate the stones into works of elemental art. The spare paragraphs accompanying the artwork unravel the geological mysteries of the silent stones and are a perfect complement.
The author’s note instructs us that beach stones are often notoriously difficult to interpret from a geological perspective because they have been smoothed by the ocean, obscuring their mineral grains and underlying structure. Nevertheless, Margaret Carruthers presents fascinating little stone stories, such as of the holed stones from Brazil that are fossilized burrows of ancient marine animals, described as “snapshots of the lifestyle of some ancient organism.”
It should come as no surprise to any of us that Maine beaches yield up troves of geologic and artistic perfection. Although the collaborators display rocks collected from the beaches scattered across five continents and Greenland, it is fitting that Maine island beach stones play such a prominent role. Elegant, naturally polished stones from North Haven, Vinalhaven, Hurricane, Brimstone and Isle au Haut all make an appearance in these pages. But all of us have secret beaches and collections whose provenance we share very carefully and very sparingly.