Low Tide
Low Tide is an artist book object created in 2022 using the randomly drawn Artist Book Idea Card set parameters. This editioned version of the book uses the randomly drawn parameters as a starting point and incorporates the text of the poem Low Tide by Edna St. Vincent Millay on both sides of the wire-edge bound book. On the exterior side, the first half of the poem is easily read, with each line or stanza flowing across the shoreline. On the interior side, the tide has receded and has washed the poem away.
The colophon is presented on a triangular plate that rests inside the opening of the tray enclosure that holds the book. This tray is removed to reveal the last portion of the poem and trench where the book can ultimately displayed.
Edition of 10
These wet rocks where the tide has been,
Barnacled white and weeded brown
And slimed beneath to a beautiful green,
These wet rocks where the tide went down
Will show again when the tide is high
Faint and perilous, far from shore,
No place to dream, but a place to die,—
The bottom of the sea once more.
There was a child that wandered through
A giant's empty house all day,—
House full of wonderful things and new,
But no fit place for a child to play.
-poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1921
