Coelacanth
Drawing
Every sculpture starts
out with a drawing. Sometimes I must do some library research because
I am a little unsure of the subject matter. The Coelacanth Rockfish
Sculpture was one of these situations. I did the drawing in August
of 1996 and built the sculpture with the aid of my drawing in August, 1999.
During the three year interval, I learned many facts about the discovery
and biology of the Coelacanth, including the fact that a coelacanth was
caught and identified recently off Manado, North Sulawesi. This is
remarkable since the only place this deepwater fish had been known from
is the Comores islands, thousands of miles away near Madagascar.
Like the Big Scale Pomfret,
the Coelacanth is a remarkable rarity. How do creatures like this
survive, hidden from our eyes in the cold depths of the world's seas? 