I created this piece in college in an advanced drawing course; the assignment was to create a drawing made up of an object.

It remains one of my favorite pieces because of its complexity and meaning. I made this at a time in my life when my sense of self was not well understood and I felt in flux with who I aspired to be and what was otherwise more familiar/comfortable. I had also been trying to hide decades of trauma and felt to be stuck in that state.

The chameleon on the left is a metaphor for the ideal. Its coloring and position represent a content and confident state. The chameleon on the right is apprehensive, insecure, uncertain, slightly agitated, and more timid. The two represent different facets of the self in flux, presented in a balancing-act sort of scenario.

Constructing the chameleons entirely out of tiny colored glass beads was a very tedious, meditative process. The resulting artwork is an allegorical self-portrait, and the process itself served as a deepening of or awakening to Self.