There is something very human about collecting organic keepsakes from a loved one, such as baby teeth and locks of hair. They are irreplaceable and often represent both a fear of loss and a celebration of growth. The same is true of the snake skins I have carefully preserved since I first started keeping snakes at age 14. This highly delicate material embodies the relationship between growth and loss, both having a quality of inevitability and irreversibility. The transformative process of turning the sheds into “papel picado”, or carved paper, is materially and emotionally challenging. the resulting images draw from the symmetrical decorative motifs frequently used in traditional Mexican papel picado, visually organic and flowing from one to the next, cyclically advancing and receding. In this, my Piel Picada depicts my self-contained, highly ambivalent experience of growth and loss.