feather-duster worms

From an artist's statement that I wrote in grad school:

"We use what is familiar to help us understand what is not. For example, in order to describe the plants and animals of the ocean, we combine descriptive words from our terrestrial world; porcelain crab, pelican's foot shell, moon snail, velvet swimming crab, feather-duster worm, acorn barnacle, and sea lettuce. In my artwork I use simple, everyday materials to describe a world that is impossibly beautiful and strange."

"The marine life collection, showing that underwater plants and animals are based on forms invented by man - fans, wigs, combs, brushes, etc." - J.J. Grandville, 1844.