The Things I’ll Never See

There are places in this world I’m almost certain I’ll never visit. Not for lack of interest, but because some of them would definitely kill me.

Take the bottom of the ocean, for example.

There are creatures down there that live in total darkness, in water so pressurised it could squash a human flat like a Coke can at a recycling depot. I can pretty confidently say deep-sea diving to those depths is not on my bucket list. I like breathing. I like not being imploded.

And yet… I’m obsessed with what lives down there.

Like the Yeti Crab — a fuzzy-armed, bacteria-farming crustacean that scuttles around hydrothermal vents miles beneath the surface. It’s the kind of animal that sounds made up by a sleep-deprived biology teacher: golden claws covered in silky bristles, living in boiling blackness, eating bacteria it grows itself like a tiny deep-sea gardener. I’ll never meet one in real life. But just because I can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not real.

That’s kind of the beautiful thing, isn’t it?
So much of this world is unseen — not because it’s imaginary, but because it’s hidden. Deep. Distant. Tiny. Microscopic.

And as an artist, that truth keeps tugging at me. The idea that there’s beauty happening where no one’s looking — wild, weird, wonderful life that exists with or without our awareness. It’s humbling. It’s inspiring. It’s also, frankly, a good excuse to sit on the couch and imagine the wonders of the ocean while I drink my coffee and stare at my cushions.

Yes, I said cushions.

My Yeti Crab wallpaper design — the one I turned into an NFT — is now also available on cushions. So if you’re not planning a deep-sea expedition anytime soon, you can still marvel at this bizarre little ocean creature from the comfort of your own couch.

There’s something fun about that, isn’t there?
Turning something invisible into something huggable.
Something unreachable into something restful.

It’s a way of bringing these marvels of nature into our daily lives — not just as facts in a nature doco, but as art, as pattern, as comfort.

I like to think the Yeti Crab would approve. After all, it thrives in strange places. Why not your lounge room?

So here’s to the things we’ll never see — the ones that keep our imaginations alive, the ones that remind us the world is weirder, wilder, and more wonderful than we can ever fully know.

And here’s to cushions.
Because some days, the best kind of deep exploration is the kind that happens while you’re horizontal with a cuppa.