Damon introduced me to Robin Wilson, his friend and also a senior curator in marine invertebrates section at Melbourne Museum, earlier this week.
Damon and I went to the back of the Museum and drew their specimen collection of reptiles.
Robin introduced us to Wayne Longmore, collection manager for Ornithology and Mammalogy.
Wayne let us look through shelves with hundreds of wet specimen in bottles.
We went to a shelf of chameleons and geckoes.
Carefully taking them out of bottles full of ethanol with tweezers and place it on a petri dish, we began to draw and draw and draw.
It was such an intense unforgettable experience.
In the room, there was this human desire to collect, label and know all things in nature.
At the same time it was heartbreaking to see everyone bottled up, and being picked up by tweezers for me to draw.
Life-long dedication and obsession.
Absolute beauty and slight madness.
Abundance and insatiability.
All in one room.
It makes me wonder what it means to know about something.
Drawing there was so intoxicatingly great, I can't stop thinking about when I can go back there and see everyone in the bottles.
Thank you so much Damon always!!
And thank you so much Robin and Wayne for making us feel so welcomed.
