About this item
In her captivating new book, artist and avid beachcomber Josie Iselin returns to the seashore to reveal the unexpected beauty of seaweed. Produced on a flatbed scanner, Iselin's vibrant portraits of ocean flora reveal the exquisite color and extraordinary forms of more than 200 specimens gathered from tidal pools along the California and Maine coasts. Her engaging text, which accompanies the images, blends personal observation and philosophical musings with scientific fact. Like her previous books, An Ocean Garden: The Secret Life of Seaweed is a poetic and compelling tribute to the natural world and the wonder it evokes.
About the Author
Josie Iselin holds a BA in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard and an MFA from San Francisco State University. She began her art career in the field of photography and installation art, exhibiting throughout the Bay Area and teaching at the California College of Arts and Crafts (CCA) . She is the author of five books with more in various stages of development in her San Francisco studio, Loving Blind Productions. She uses her flatbed scanner and computer exclusively for generating her imagery. She has done so for almost fifteen years and is still captivated by the fluidity with which this technique allows her to render and design with three-dimensional objects. Each book is built with-in the computer, in essence as a piece of sculpture. As a writer and designer as well as photographer, Josie can be considered the ultimate craftperson in her task as book-maker. Her first book, , was produced as an artist's book by Trillium Press, Brisbane, CA in 2004. It is available on Blurb. com. Her second and third books, and , were both released in 2006 by Abrams, an imprint of Harry N. Abrams, Inc, New York, NY. Her third book in the series on forms in nature, , came out in June 2007 and the fourth book, , launched in time for Valentines Day, 2008. A fifth book exploring the interconnection of art and science is titled . Released for summer 2010 by Chronicle Books, is a celebration of what we find at the beach. As the writer, Josie emphasizes ways to think about our ocean environment so that we might be a better steward of it, infusing personal, aesthetic and historical anecdote into the science. Josie enjoys giving talks and workshops and is busy learning more about seaweed. She is also working on a new little book of sea glass hearts. Josie Iselin lives with her husband and three children on a steep hill in San Francisco.
