Shoaler Voices

Star Map: Summer House

by Emily Cann, Pelican Reunion

The Summer House has always been my muse. Since a conferee, I was drawing it, painting it, cutting it out of paper. The cacophony of the sunset would fade into the mainland and the Summer House stood respondent to our needs. Silhouetted, still, atop the little world we lived in whether it be for a day, a week, a summer, or a decade. We lived here, and it stood over us. It was my muse.

Star Island Aerial Darren Grebe Summer House

Over the years, my fellow Pelicans have been the benefactor of this daydream. To know me and Star is to have something of the Summer House – a painting on a scrap of cloth, a polaroid collage, a first baby onesie. And my weakness for this weathered structure is known and shared. A painted box from my sister, filled with island treasures. A clamshell painted with its likeness. We’ve crafted the Summer House in the Summer House. Winds creating new shapes as materials are found and lost. And while all these items stay the same, the receivers change and grow and put the items away, and forget. Until they go back to the Summer House. It’s not the item they remember, it’s the muse. The Summer House, ever steady, ever watching. Our fortress upon the rocks.


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