For the title of this show, I use the word specifically to describe healing (becoming whole) from the effects of childhood trauma through the reintegration and synthesis of fragments of the self. While much of my previous work tried to capture in visual form the splitting of the psyche in response to trauma, this exhibition also represents the opposite, an attempt to reunite the splintered shards of the personality into a new whole. It is about rejoining separated, dissociated parts of the psyche into a more harmonious, less restrictive configuration. To depict this transformation, I not only employ the characters from my own personal mythology, but draw on themes from world mythology like the story of Cupid and Psyche and alchemical images of the chemical wedding, the symbolic union of opposites needed to create the philosopher’s stone that can turn lead into gold. I use found objects, often someone else’s trash, as part of the raw materials for my work, a similar process to transforming lead into gold, or symbolically turning trauma into something more positive. I also draw on the natural world: the resurrection fern for me is a symbol of that transformation and rebirth as the fern can go without water for a hundred years and just a little water can return it to life. Its joining with the oak tree parallels the union of opposites. In my process, I use a combination of semiautomatic drawings and jelly prints to create textures and shapes that can be built on and embellished with more semiautomatic drawing. My hope with this is to increase access to my unconscious mind and connect with the stray parts of my psyche that need to be reunited.