Slouching to Be Born

Handmade ceramic tiles, mirror glass & photolithographs on clay, 25” round, Artist’s Collection

William Butler Yeats’s prescient poem The Second Coming reverberated with me in 2019 while living in Trump’s America: ‘Things fall apart. The ceremony of innocence is drowned. And what rough beast…slouches…to be born?’ However, here the Innocents are the ones slouching to be born, while the Evil One, or Antichrist, controls their fate. The Innocents are outlined in blue and green shards, signifying purity and growth. Glass streams of red umbilical blood emanate from the Evil One. Gold mirror glass fills the entire background. This signified Divine Light and Oneness for the Byzantines. Here, its use is ironic. (Original photos: Wendy F. Lang; Gerry Goodstein)