This is the full record of one unscripted conversation, filmed while the museum was open and visitors walked through. Three moments were cut as clips. The rest is here too, in the transcript, with private passages marked where they were withheld. The original footage is fingerprinted at the bottom of this page.
Three moments
Each clip is labeled with where it sits in the full conversation.
On being loved
I want people to feel like they are loved.Read it in the full conversation
The leafy seadragon
I know that I come across as a weirdo.Read it in the full conversation
Knowing when it's done
Learned to get out of the way and quit dinking with it.Read it in the full conversation
Photographs
The full conversation
Lightly cleaned for reading: filler words and false starts trimmed, wording kept as spoken. Gray tags mark private passages that were withheld. Italic notes describe moments that were not words, or speech too unclear to transcribe.
Part I
00:00 to 15:09ChrisWhat's a current favorite piece? This one's brand new. Although we'll probably have to have someone stand there, because it's on a motion sensor. Let me see what else I brought last time.
ChrisLast month we had to take two huge pieces down that had infestations and fix them. So this one has now got a bunch of hidden pest strips in it. Both of those are new. There was a similar piece before, but that one's totally new. And this one, shoot, I didn't bring the label for it. Actually, this one was gone for a while and came back out.
VisitorJust really admiring your work.
ChrisThank you so much. Are you having a good time? That makes me so happy.
VisitorIs this a lifetime's worth of work?
ChrisOh, yeah. Thirty years to put together all of these pieces.
VisitorIt's meticulous.
ChrisThank you very much. I'm from Salem, Oregon, just up for the day. I've got some meetings this afternoon, and we're doing a little filming.
VisitorAnd you take the show all over?
ChrisThe last decade it's been touring museums all over North America. This is my first proprietary iteration, just to see if we could make a go of it. And it's been good.
VisitorWe're certainly going to recommend it.
ChrisI'll take all the good words we can get. I've got three books. The latest one is in the gift shop, and it's by far the best one. In fact, I'm never doing another book. Every time that book gets reprinted, I just add another 20 pages. So that's got all the good stuff in it.
VisitorWe've enjoyed the stories you've written.
ChrisWe can always do something in front of this rainbow wall. This is actually a new piece. Withheld
DevonIs that something you were working on?
ChrisIt was a similar piece, but this is the one I just built. Of course, all the species are different, all the specimens are different. But it was kind of the same.
DevonWere you working on this all year?
ChrisOh, I've been working on this for a couple of years.
DevonWith something like this, what's something you're working on that nobody else would understand you did? Something you see that maybe I don't even see?
ChrisProbably mostly in where these things come from. Over a decade or more, how specimens come to me from different types of people, different organizations, different individuals that work with these organisms, and what they do to get them to me.
ChrisFor camera? I don't know how this works.
DevonIt's just conversation. You don't have to look at the camera.
ChrisThis is a piece called Convocation. It's kind of my fantasy piece from when I was a kid. I was a lizard nut, and lizards were everything to me. So to grow up and start working with all these different organisms, granted they've passed, but to bring them back to their pristine, lifelike beauty, has just been a dream for me. The trick with this one is how long it takes to acquire all these specimens. This is probably a decade of me waiting as people or institutions send me organisms that passed of natural causes.
ChrisThis, for example, is a Gila monster. There are very few people in America, in the low double digits, with the permits to raise, breed and propagate Gila monsters. They're a protected species. They're just an amazing organism. They're one of two venomous lizards in the world and the only venomous lizard in the United States. The guy I know, I've known him a long time, breeds Gila monsters and helps keep these populations healthy. When something passes, he doesn't want to throw it away. So he sent it to me, just to give it a second life and make sure that it lives on forever and inspires people.
DevonThat's super cool, I love it. When you do the preservation, do you send him an image or something?
ChrisAbsolutely. I like to make sure it's worth everyone's time. So either I pay him, or I send him a book, or I preserve something for him. That's something I really love doing. When people, especially institutions, lose something that's really special to them, I'm like, look, let me take it. Let me preserve it, let me seal it, and make it so it lasts forever. And then you give me some specimens. I want people to know that I really value their time and their efforts and their expertise.
DevonYou say over a decade. How did you meet that guy?
ChrisI think I first worked with him about ten years ago, and I can't for the life of me remember how I got in touch with him. It was probably some mutual acquaintance.
DevonDo you go meet most of these people?
ChrisNot really. There's a good percentage I've never met in person. Here's a good example. I have a really hard time getting frogs. For whatever reason, people who work with frogs don't ever want to give them up, even when they die. It's kind of strange. But the guy who sent me probably the rarest frog in this exhibit is a private breeder who works with the Amazon Spheres. He's one of the botanists who makes sure all of the plants there are perfect. But he's also got a poison dart frog breeding program. One of his really rare specimens passed, probably two years ago, and he reached out and said, hey, I know what you do, I've got this beautiful specimen, and I don't want it to go to waste. Let me just send it to you. Super nice guy.
ChrisAnd then when we opened this space, he walked by when I was over at Ivar's waiting to get some fish, and he goes, "Chris!" I had never met him before. It was hilarious. We started talking, and he's like, oh my gosh, let me get you into the Amazon Spheres. And now I've worked with Amazon to preserve some of the rare botanicals they've got. It's so cool. Those kinds of serendipitous experiences, they're magical.
ChrisThey've got some really amazing specimens. Oh, this guy. This is a really rare poison dart frog, Oophaga histrionica. It's one of the rarest poison dart frogs in the world. I think I did a pretty good job on that one. It looks pretty good.
DevonYou'd probably known about a frog like that your whole life, right?
ChrisI didn't know this species, to be honest with you. It was rare enough that I didn't even know about it. I love poison dart frogs. I've caught them myself in Central and South America. Never taken one out of the wild, just handled them, which is not really wise, because if you've got a cut on your hand you can be in big trouble. But you can handle them briefly. I didn't know about this species at all until he sent it to me.
DevonThe first time I came here, I was thinking there's so much most people never knew existed. I think people probably assume you know all of these.
ChrisOh, no. I'll give you a great example. I've got it out in my truck, a piece I just finished. The deepest and biggest freshwater lake in the world is in Russia, Lake Baikal. It's so huge that supposedly one seventh of all the fresh water in the world is in that lake. And it's so deep no one's ever been to the bottom. So there are all these weird species that come out of that lake. I found a fisherman in Russia who pulls out these really weird things called amphipods. They're kind of a shrimp, but they've got way too many appendages, these giant spikes and four sets of claws. Really bizarre, otherworldly creatures. He sent me one a couple of weeks ago, I just preserved it, it was pretty easy to preserve, and I'm going to put it up today.
ChrisIt's a light box, so I've got to get behind this wall and hook it up. But you'll be able to see it. It's a magnification light box, because it's not a huge specimen. We have to go out the front, unfortunately, because the alarm would go off the other way.
ChrisWithheld I just love Ohio. I never met a single jerk from Ohio. Just the most normal, nice people.
ChrisWithheld I lived in Atlanta for five years, and northwest Georgia is one of my favorite places in the world.
VisitorHow do you preserve the amphibians and the fish?
ChrisVery, very slowly. The idea is to slow down the drying process so much that there's no cellular collapse in the organism when it dries. Sometimes it can take up to a year. I've got special little tricks I've developed that I haven't really let people know about, that have let me preserve things no one's been able to preserve.
VisitorA young visitor says they keep poison dart frogs.
ChrisWhich kind? The yellow and blue? They're so awesome. Okay, so you know what to do when they die, right? You call me, I send you a book, you send me the specimen, and I preserve it. We don't want them to die, of course, but everything dies eventually. Just don't throw them away. I'm easy to find. Withheld
VisitorMentions a frog of theirs named Mr. Cutie.
ChrisI would take special care of Mr. Cutie. Oh, did he go in the ground or in the freezer? Oh, dang it. Well, if you put them in the freezer, I can work with you. That's how it happens. You'll see one over there, the histrionica. It's one of the rarest poison dart frogs in the world. Withheld
Part II
15:10 to 31:08ChrisPeople just like you, and institutions. Some zoos, some museums, some importers, some breeders. But a lot of times it's just people like you who love poison dart frogs, raise them and try to keep them alive as long as they can. And when they die, I've kind of got a reputation for being the guy to send dead stuff to. So that's where a lot of things come from. But there's a different story behind all this stuff.
ChrisThese, for example, are all from a guy in Denver. He raises Nepenthes, which are tropical pitcher plants. He's the nicest guy in the world. I was just talking to him this morning. He cuts off the pitchers, which doesn't hurt the plant, and we overnight them, frozen or just cool. Then I freeze-dry these, so they go pretty fast. About two months, which is pretty fast for me.
VisitorDo you have to change them out?
ChrisOh, no, these last forever. This piece is probably five years old. Once they're preserved, they'll last indefinitely. Color fading can be an issue with some of them, so on some of these I did some color restoration, because they'd get kind of faded out. But that's what they look like.
ChrisThese are just leaves. They look like they're the whole organism, but this is just the leaves of a carnivorous pitcher plant. These are plants that eat animals. Little frogs will fall in and drown, and they can't get out because the inside is slippery and the hairs point the wrong direction. They die and decompose, and the plant eats them. The plant has all kinds of pitchers, so cutting them off doesn't hurt it. The pitchers die like a leaf in the fall, and new ones come out. So if I can preserve the pitcher, you get an idea of how that organism works.
VisitorAsks where the frogs lay their eggs.
ChrisThat's right. They usually use bromeliads.
VisitorAsks about poison versus venom, and describes spotting a copperhead on a trail.
ChrisCopperheads are so hard to spot. They're so camouflaged. You've got to be careful, but copperheads aren't very aggressive. If you don't chase after them, they'll leave you alone. Visitors ask for a photo.
DevonYou never get sick of that.
ChrisThat's pretty fun. I've got a piece to replace up there, so I'm going to go grab it.
DevonDriving back tonight too?
ChrisYeah, probably. It's four hours with no traffic. I really enjoy that four hours. It's the perfect amount of time to put on a good podcast. Withheld and I were just yapping our brains out the whole way up here. I had a head rush by the time we got here. We don't ever get to sit and talk like that. It was cool.
ChrisRemind me, are you native to Seattle?
DevonYeah.
ChrisThat's a beautiful area. I worked at the Salish Lodge when I was 21, for about six months. I was a houseboy. The house boys run around and start people's fires and bring them whatever. You're kind of a grunt. My brother was going to UW, and I had just come home from being out of the country for a couple of years and wanted to stick around. He said, come stay with me and we'll find you a job.
DevonThis piece we're grabbing, you said it was a pretty quick one?
ChrisYeah. By the time it got to me, it was dried and in really good shape. I just had to rehydrate the joints to be able to position it the way I wanted, and then dry it again. It was a cinch.
DevonWhat did you see that made you think, I've got to rehydrate it?
ChrisThe artistry with insects is getting them to look the way you want them to look. You've got a ton of legs, and I wanted the legs to be perfectly symmetrical, doing the thing I wanted them to do. I've just got a vision of what the specimen should look like. He had it pinned down, just looking very dead.
ChrisYou can't really see it very well, but you get the idea.
DevonWe'll get some light in there.
ChrisI guess that's the artsy part. You just have an idea of what it should look like, and you keep messing with it until it does.
ChrisSo tell me what you've worked on in the last year that you're excited about, and what you want to do more of.
DevonAround the time I met you, I started working with a larger organization.
ChrisDo you do storytelling?
DevonBasically the same thing I'm doing with you. What I learned from that job is, the larger the company you work with, the more restrictions.
ChrisThat's exactly why I'm doing this by myself instead of through a museum. It's ten years of museums telling me what I can and can't do.
DevonWhat I learned is I need to be in a room with founders, primarily. People who speak freely, or at least people who are really passionate and open. It's helped me figure out the clientele I want to work with. I feel like I've got a handful of good ones going.
ChrisThat's fantastic.
DevonI'm working with a company called Graypants. The founder started it in Seattle dumpster diving for cardboard, and he's built light fixtures and sculptures out of it.
ChrisOh my gosh, I think I've heard of that guy. That is so cool.
DevonI'm working with a welding company that created the world's smallest TIG torch. Just cool stories.
ChrisThat's fantastic. Withheld
ChrisI've got a weird one. Check this dude out. It's really freaky. It comes from the bottom of the deepest lake in the world, in Russia. Lake Baikal. A fisherman there sent me some of the amphipods from Baikal.
ChrisOh, check out that dude. Green tree python. Withheld I can't put this up until we close, so I'm going to come back tonight. I have to get in behind the wall.
DevonDo you want to do a shot of this as best we can? I can send you images. I can freeze you into a reveal or something later.
Withheld
DevonIs there a creature that comes to mind that you still haven't gotten your hands on?
ChrisOh, tons of stuff.
DevonWhat's one?
ChrisMost of it right now is really deep sea stuff. But I've got a new lead. There's a lady I've been working with for a while, but we haven't been able to figure out how to get bycatch that comes out of the middle of nowhere in Southeast Asia, from trawlers. They've obviously got freezers on their boats. So I've got people looking for interesting bycatch, and they get it in the freezers. Withheld So we finally have one fishing company that's going to do a frozen container of all different kinds of seafood that comes all the way to the States. We think that's going to work. For about the last several months, I've been going through images that come from the fishermen, finding things that are really unusual. We think maybe a new type of fish, along with a bunch of other stuff. Hopefully I see that container show up, still frozen, in January. I'm always picking away at trying to find the next cool thing.
DevonWith the fish, you're just looking at pictures?
ChrisThey'll send me pictures of the entire deck, and it's heartbreaking. The entire deck is just covered in dead stuff. They dump the net out, they pick out the fish that are commercially viable, and everything else just gets dumped. It sucks. But making use of something is better than nothing.
DevonWhy don't they just throw them back?
ChrisSometimes they do, if things are still alive. But usually it's things that have been dragged from the bottom of the ocean. By the time it gets up, a lot of it, if not most of it, is dead. And by the time they go through things on the deck, it's just not a priority for them. Sometimes you'll see a ten-foot shark lying there, and it's just horrible.
ChrisYou want me to stand in front of a piece and tell you an interesting story? Did we do any of this last time? I can't remember if I've already talked about some of these things with somebody. Let's see. I'll tell you about this leafy seadragon. It's kind of a cool story.
Part III
31:09 to 47:32ChrisThe leafy seadragon was probably top of my bucket list for about a decade. They're a really interesting species. They're not actually endangered, but they have a really small endemic habitat, which is just off the southern coast of Australia. And Australia is rigid about not allowing anyone to touch the seadragon.
ChrisThere's one exception. There's one guy in Australia who has permits to export one gravid, or pregnant, male every year. The males carry the babies in seadragons, and they can have a zillion babies. He can legally export one gravid male, and that male supplies all of the aquariums in the Western world that have a leafy seadragon. They've never been bred in captivity. So that's the entire legitimate supply line for all of the aquariums in North America.
ChrisSo I researched every aquarium in North America that had ever advertised having leafy seadragons. Because they only live a couple of years, I knew no one was ever going to throw one away. It was going to be sitting back in a freezer somewhere. None of them would even talk to me. I just kept pounding the pavement. I finally got one institution to write back one sentence, saying, no, what do you want? They didn't understand my request. So I zeroed in on them and hounded them for another couple of years, and they would never write me back.
ChrisSo I showed up at this institution in Hawaii, and I was like, hey, I'm the guy that's been bugging you for the last couple of years. Just hear me out. The lady I was talking to was really nice. I brought her a book and said, look, I'll do anything. I don't care what it costs me. Just tell me how I can help you. I know you've got specimens in your freezer back there that are just languishing. And she's like, yeah, I do. We had some back here a few years ago. Like I said, they don't live very long.
ChrisSo she let me come back with her, and she was digging through the freezer, pulling out several specimens. They weren't even in plastic bags. They were just in the food freezers. And as she was taking them out and looking through her freezer, I was putting them in my box. I ended up with like eight leafy seadragons. She finally turns around and says, oh, okay, I think that's enough. And I was like, listen, tell me what you want. I sent her a pallet of books. I'm like, let me help you with your gift store, I'll preserve something special for you. It was really kind of her to even talk to me, because I know that I come across as a weirdo.
ChrisBut anyway, that's how I was finally able to get a leafy seadragon preserved. As far as I know, I don't know of any full specimen that's ever been preserved. It was really interesting and tricky to figure out what they need, how to restore color, how to help it have this eternal life that it's going to have, inspiring people.
DevonWith new creatures coming in that you've never touched before, I'd imagine that changes the preservation process completely each time.
ChrisNot completely. Almost everything I work with is somehow related, even if distantly, to something else. So usually I've got some way to start, and some tricks that have worked in similar species.
DevonAnd the one you just pulled from the depths of the lake, what's most similar to that?
ChrisProbably just a shrimp. Honestly, anything I'm preserving that's got an exoskeleton is not that difficult. They're generally pretty simple, and there are relatively universal principles. But this one was more different than anything I've ever done, because it rehydrated instantly. He had sent me three, and the first one I hydrated for way too long, and it almost completely fell apart. So the learning curve has to be pretty quick. Generally I have some place to start, but there's a first time for everything. And I've lost a whole lot of really amazing things.
DevonYou've had to have made mistakes on certain things.
ChrisI'm trying to think of anything that springs to mind that was super tragic. I can't think of anything off the top of my head. In fact, honestly, it's been the things that I can't believe survived the process. I've had some specimens that were so far gone, there was almost nothing left but the skin, and I've been able to plump them up and juice them up, get them frozen solid in a position that looked fresh, then go through the whole process and actually have something left to work with after they dried. It was pretty remarkable.
DevonGoing back to the question I asked outside, how do you know when you're done? From a photographer's standpoint, when I'm editing and I'm really excited about something, I just keep tweaking it.
ChrisYes. You can tweak it into oblivion.
DevonSo with this one, how long did it take, and when were you just like, you know what...
ChrisI need to be honest with you. This is the second one I did, and with the first one I learned to get out of the way and quit dinking with it. That lady, I think I was able to get six or eight specimens from her. And this one's much better than the first one, which I really overworked.
ChrisThat's a really interesting point about all artistry. How much of me goes into this piece? How much is the concept or the composition, whatever it is? How much is it pure on its own, taking on a life of its own? How much of whatever I'm trying to capture needs to just stand alone? I think it's really hard for all artists to know when it's enough of me, and now it's time for the piece to be able to live. It's probably more so in my case, because these pieces were specimens that were alive, and they really do tell their own story. So it's been a big learning process for me to know when to just be done.
DevonI think it is cool, at least from my experience, that you do get better at stepping away.
ChrisAbsolutely. And oftentimes, as you get more mature in your artistry, those pieces you've stepped away from sooner, not always, but sometimes they become your greatest pieces. I just let it do its thing, and I didn't screw it up.
DevonI've only got one more question for you, and then I'll let you go. Do you want to move to another piece? What visually looks good for you?
ChrisThis is kind of a good one. You can't get a bad shot of that one. You say it, your call. I can talk about every one of these.
ChrisI'll tell you about one that I thought wasn't even going to be worthy to be here when I started making it, and it's become one that people post about the most. Actually, there are two like that. This one, I thought, oh, a bunch of stupid little balloons, who cares? But that's probably one of the most posted pieces here. There's something about this piece. Maybe it's a palate cleanser for the rest of the exhibit. There are a lot of really bizarre, freaky things. Even though there are some pretty rare blooms in here, they're mostly Hoyas and some orchids. That one just kind of surprised me. I thought, I need something that's kind of pretty, that everyone can relate to. Because people come through and don't always relate to everything. That's something that's universally appreciable, and maybe that's why everyone posts it. It just worked really well.
DevonWhen one gets more attention, does it change what you make? Does it make you want to do more flower ones?
ChrisNo. I'm really pretty dang selfish. I'm interested in the things I'm interested in. And what I'm most interested in, to be totally honest, is people having a mind-blowing experience with nature. So when there's a hole in the exhibit, a hole in the story that's being told, I'm willing to do whatever I've got to do to fill that hole. But I don't gravitate toward flowers.
ChrisI'll tell you another one that answers that same question. This is one of the newest pieces here. With bivalves, it's amazing that these colors are totally untouched, totally natural. You wouldn't think scallops, and these are almost all scallops, would be that colorful. But I thought, they're so common. Go into any goofy rock store or souvenir store, and there are scallops everywhere. Even though there are some really rare and unusual mutations and species included, it's mostly really common stuff. I thought, that's not really worthy of Exquisite Creatures. But to be honest with you, this is another one of those pieces that just really pops. Maybe it's because it is familiar. You've been walking through an exhibit of things that are largely unfamiliar, and at the very least have never been seen in this context. To see something that's familiar and still beautiful, maybe that's something people need by the time they get to this part of the exhibit. I don't know. But this one was surprising to me, that it's been so well received.
DevonAll right, last one. If you stopped doing what you're doing tomorrow, what would you hope people would understand you were actually doing all these years?
ChrisIt's really the same answer as the question of what I hope people come away from the exhibit with. It's a renewed sense of awe and wonder. We're just jaded. We've seen everything now. We sit online and can see pictures of everything. To have these personal, corporeal interactions with organisms that are alive right now, today, growing or living their lives out somewhere on this planet, that you had no idea about, and you're face to face with it. I just hope people go home with a renewed sense of awe and wonder about our planet, and about their own creativity.
ChrisI talk a lot about the organisms in this exhibit, but really, it's an art exhibit first, in my opinion. For people to feel like their own creative juices have had a jumpstart, that would probably be one of the most important things.
ChrisThe last and the most important thing is a little esoteric. I want people to feel like they are loved. That this universe is created with all of this superfluous beauty, superfluous biodiversity, way more than is necessary, for a very distinct purpose. And that purpose is so that we know that we're loved.
DevonThose things you said, I mean, those are things you must have had to experience to want to pass them on. Do you remember the first time you figured that out?
ChrisThe first one, with regards to creativity and the wonder of nature and what it does to our own creativity, that feeling of awe and wonder was in my earliest memories, looking for snakes and lizards. There was one time, I'd been beating the bushes all summer long. I came home from another day out in the field, and in Oregon we don't have that many snakes. And there was this gopher hole in the ditch by our neighbor's yard, with two bull snakes, five to six feet long, sunning themselves outside. I about lost it. It was life-changing for me. And I'm trying to grab both of them at the same time. It's hilarious. But those experiences of discovery were so formative for me. That desire to push that feeling, it's such a wonderful feeling, to other people, that's really been a big part of it.
ChrisFeeling loved is the second part. I feel very fortunate. I've had a pretty robust spiritual life my entire life. That's come naturally to me. But the part where I put it together was really recent. The last five or seven years, putting this exhibit together, and then seeing people come in with tears in their eyes. I can't even talk about this. So stupid.
DevonIt is cool. I saw it.
ChrisI know, it happens all the time. That lit a fire in me, and it opened my eyes to the fact that it's not just for me. It's not, Chris, you're something special. No, it's for everyone, to feel that sense of belonging, that sense of wonder, that sense of being loved. That there's a reason for all of this. And that's become probably the primary driving force in my work now.
DevonThat is cool. And it sounds like you only discovered unclear recently.
ChrisIt actually was. And thankfully I'm not a complete spiritual neophyte. I had enough experience with those kinds of feelings and insights that it made sense to me when it came. But it was completely unexpected. I was just trying to build a career, have people think I'm a cool artist, work with things I love, preserve nature and all that stuff. The big love stuff came at the end. I won't say I was shocked, but it was unexpected and unintended.
DevonI like you sharing that stuff, because I think it's important.
ChrisWell, thanks, man. This was fun. What are you shooting with?
DevonThis is a 360 camera, so it gets everything.
ChrisThat's very cool.
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