Seashells

Artist Josie Iselin celebrates the diversity and beauty of nature with her exquisite portraits of seashells. Like her extremely popular Beach Stones and Leaves & Pods, Seashells is not a field guide but an artful and informative portrayal of a beloved part of our natural world. The book balances the exotic with the familiar, from tropical corals and rare fossils to everyday clamshells and barnacles. In her introduction and captions, marine geologist and paleontologist Sandy Carlson introduces the reader to seashells in all their variety, explaining why they look as they do. Both an art book and a contemplation of nature, Seashells combines aesthetic delight in natural things with scientific fact and philosophical wonder.

Author Biography

Josie Iselin is a photographer and installation artist. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard and a Master of Fine Arts from San Francisco State University. Although her training is in traditional photography, she now produces images exclusively with a flatbed scanner and a computer. Her work has been exhibited at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Intersection for the Arts, SF Camerawork, and art galleries in and around San Francisco, where she lives. Sandra J. Carlson is a Professor in the Geology Department of the University of California in Davis. She is a paleontologist specialising in marine invertebrates. She lives in San Francisco.