Photographs by Josie Iselin & text by Sandy Carlson
New York: Abrams, 2007.
The Benificence of Beaches
Calling to my nieces to go for a walk when they visit me on Vinalhaven, I ask, “Wanna go shopping?” They’ve learned that for me, island-bound, “shopping” means beachcombing. We give ourselves a list of what we’d like to find. A sand dollar, a sea urchin shell. A useable yank of rope. Turquoise or lilac-colored beach glass. Bones. Pyramid shapes of granite. A mussel shell bearing the bump of an incipient pearl. Smooth stones encircled with unbroken lines. “Ricki-rocks,” we call those, named by us in reference to long-time summer resident Ricki Soaring Dove, a practitioner of various healing arts, whose motto is “Be an Elf to Your Self.” She is someone we imagine understands the power of Nature and, as she might, we attribute to those stones that possible potency. All of our found objects take on talisman status, representing qualities like persistence and tenacity, durable beauty or usefulness that survives the vicissitudes of time. We’d come home from an expedition, pockets bulging, and take fresh pleasure in re-fingering our finds. Finally, we’d arrange them on display. They might be composed upon a scrap of lumber, or the deck’s flooring, or the hearth of the out-of-season woodstove. While touch must be one of the initial draws to an object, wondering what something would feel like, ultimately these transcended that, as if claiming rightful status as holy relics or museum pieces, objets d’art. The caress of one’s eye alone provides pleasure. And so it is with this book of photographs by Josie Iselin.
Beachcombing is a commonplace activity along the Maine coast, and traditions like mine are probably quite ordinary. Photographer Iselin obviously knows the reward of scavenging in nature, seeing in those everyday objects an ethereal quality that invites some closer association of us with them. Two previous books of hers looked at beach stones and leaves and pods. Her newest, Seashells, allows us to appreciate some favorites in that genre, collected from beaches herself or by family and friends. Iselin generates her images of objects with a flatbed scanner instead of a camera, a method she prefers because it captures nuances of detail. In an endnote, she describes finding “magnificence in even the plainest of seashells,” their paradoxical combination of strength and fragility “awesome to ponder.”
That her striking images are supplemented with some explication by paleontologist Sandy Carlson compounds the pleasure. Carlson’s text, accompanying each illustration, is as succinct and poetic — indeed, haiku-esque — as Iselin’s spare, minimalist photographs. Their mutually understated approach seemingly emphasizes the shells’ ordinariness, yet, conversely, allows — even encourages — the shells to come across as not only notable but wow-worthy. Carlson sneaks in, painlessly, some scientific knowledge, so readers stand to learn something new. For instance, did you realize some species of scallops can swim more than 30 feet in a single burst? Who knew?! And then Carlson gives us something more to truly enhance our appreciation. She writes, “Asymmetry in the `ears’ along the hinge can cause scallops to swim in a wobbly zigzag; it may not be graceful but often allows them to scoot away before becoming someone’s lunch.” Now, you might never look at a scallop without picturing its skewed swim but straight-ahead survival instincts.
In a word, this book is “precious,” with all positive connotations intended. It is beautiful to behold. Every page has its pleasures. As with Ricki-rocks, there is potency in these images.