Summer at the Beach by Stephanie Mahan Stigliano (2005)

Writing from the depths of a long winter it is therapeutic to discuss a book that calls to mind the distant balmy days of summer. In the Herron Collection nothing does this quite like Stephanie Mahan Stigliano's "Summer at the Beach" that draws on objects found on the beach which are used in the creation of a book about memory. Playful and poignant at the same time, and consisting of a box with a slotted lid and carved in low relief with collographs and hand-painted, the book contains 26 "pages" that are painted bottle caps, known as "coins", found on the beach with texts lining the insides of the coins and protected beneath sand-encrusted resin. The texts are brief statements, possibly a dissected poem, that could be interpreted to connect the sea, life, the ponderings of a beach-comber, or a creature of the shore. Examples are "Can my delicate shell protect me?", "I am as ruthless as a shark", "I drift away", "Sun-warmed water is above and the cold is below-two parts of my divided self", "I melt inside and dissolve in his arms", "I am chosen and float to the surface", "Out of control of my destiny, I am [a] jellyfish tossed by the waves". The coins of memory and contemplation are dropped through the slot in the box lid, rattling against each other as they fall. This is one in a series of "Memory Books" by the author using slotted boxes and bottle caps. Others include "City Sights and Sounds" (2004).