It all began with a dream, or rather, a nightmare. I was being bitten by a snake, devoured whole by a snake, a snake made of flames, snakes all over my body. Seemingly out of nowhere, I began having horrible nightmares about a creature which, until that point, I had felt fairly ambivalent towards. With nightmares came phobia–even the picture of a snake would start my heart pounding in my chest.

As I pondered this newfound fear, I began to wonder at the fact that snakes bear an important place in many of the world’s religions and spiritual beliefs. I could not help but feel there was something important in these dreams, and I wanted to know more. First and foremost, I decided to just start learning about snakes. I am of the belief that fear is often rooted in an idea of “otherness.” That which we don’t understand scares us. So I began reading about snake safety, which then led to reading about snake taxonomy and science, and then to drawing their unique forms. That line of inquiry eventually evolved into this project.

I created a series of shadow boxes, each one depicting a story or spiritual belief about snakes from a distinct cultural background. There is a box representing the story of the Garden of Eden from Abrahamic religions, specifically Gnosticism, one representing the Hindu god Shesha, another of the Ouroboros, a symbol shared by many cultures, and lastly a depiction of the Snake Dance from the Native American Hopi people. The boxes were built out of wood, and then populated with layers of laser-cut wood. The layers were painted and decoupaged with various materials, then arranged in the boxes with LED lights, for custom, hidden, internal lighting schemes for each.

I am happy to report that my methods have worked better than I could have ever expected. I have gone from being afraid of snakes to being a weird snake lady, and I have no regrets.