Original Animal Drawing, “Moray Eel”, ink on paper, 8 x 12”, 2021

The written text on this sketchbook page reads: “Eel completely out in the open, breathing, resting on bottom.  The human spectators narrate the animal dramas aloud to themselves and each other.”

This sketch of a moray eel was made from life at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma.  I love drawing animals, especially sea creatures, and especially from life.  Seeing their underwater world is like seeing something we aren’t supposed to see, where creatures seem to soar and float through the air, breathing and existing where we cannot without special equipment to breathe and see for us.  While the moray eel looks menacing with its sharp teeth and open mouth… it is just breathing.  I made a note on the page how much the other visitors to the aquarium would narrate dramatic scenes about the creatures they observed, placing human emotions and follies onto aquatic life playing out their own existences.  We cannot help ourselves.

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