Things Fall Apart

For the past decade, Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming” has haunted me. History, it seems, is repeating itself, too often featuring the worst of human failings. When Russia invaded Ukraine, I was experimenting with oil and cold wax on a cradled wood panel. As I laid down layer after layer of disparate shapes tumbling through space, a line from that poem, “things fall apart, the centre cannot hold,” kept coming to mind. I soon realized I was painting the first phrase of that line, responding mainly to the overwhelming crises around the world. I still hope the second phrase might not come to pass.