 There are two lizards in the Book Garden installation at San Antonio Central Library. The lizards are different from each other, and the Taiwanese-born artist Longbin Chen said he made them especially for this exhibit. If you look under the lizard's chins, you see that each of the lizards is carved from hardcover books. The bright colors from the books also show through on the lizard's body and on the feet, legs and tail. Longbin Chen, whose art has been exhibited all over the world, said he likes to create art that has local significance. The idea of lizards came up when he was planning the installation with library director Ramiro Salazar, who led the effort to bring Longbin Chen's art to San Antonio. And the lizard was the one of the ideas I talked with Ramiro. I talked about maybe for San Antonio, maybe it's a good idea. Yeah, so I make two for San Antonio. They're different. They're very different in their poses and stuff. What was your inspiration on this? Because this is a new subject. I was beginning to make the human figure especially head. And the whole body, then to some stone, some object, then now turn to the animal and lizard. Is that your first lizard, but is it your first animal? No, no, no. It's not my first animal. My first animal I make so different. Like in India, I'm making carnage. In a carnage, it was like an elephant head. And when I talked to my Indian friend about what kind of stuff we needed to do in India, and everyone talked about carnage, carnage, carnage. And if you know the carnage, the elephant head, the whole story in the religions, and the Indian people are crazy about the carnage, because it's a great story and a great symbol, great icon for Indian people. And so I made that a few and it's quite exciting. Now I still have one in India and I make another one in USA and people are quite exciting about it. So for San Antonio and this part of the United States, the lizard has a lot. It's a big deal. So when you went to make him, are the books inside of him similar? No, actually I make a different kind of book. Basically I choose a hard carving, a hard carving book. And I have a different kind of chopper chain. So give a different kind of meaning. So how long did that take you to make? Because this is my first time to making a lizard. So a little bit difficult, especially the foot is small, it's my first time to do it. So a little bit long, maybe more than three weeks. Then I make the second one. So you will see a little bit different, the technique. So I wanted to get back to what's on the ground. You said this is the desert. This represents the desert, which is a different thing as well for an installation. So what's in here? There is shredded paper. So the paper was shredded here. And the stone was brought in here from San Antonio, right? The stone is from... Yeah, yeah, yeah. And local stone. And sand? Yeah, the sand was local. I bought about more than 20 beds from the Home Depot and somehow we stopped. The Home Depot probably had no idea. No idea what I was doing. There was art in those bags. That's terrific. That's terrific. So it looks like this guy is coming right up out of the desert. Shredded paper is like shredded paper mixed with sand and stone. So the culture and nature is a stone, the culture becomes second nature. So it's culture and nature to mix together. The combination of sand, shredded paper and rocks represents the desert of the Southwest, a perfect home to the iconic lizards. As Longbin Chen said, the medium transforms the subject and becomes the message.