Rubble

While working on this painting, I was thinking of the bricks of buildings in Germany devastated by bombs and artillery during WWII, which women removed and cleaned one by one, so that they could be used to rebuild. The women were called Trümmerfrauen, “rubble women.”

My rubble, however, is more from erosion, from the disappearance of people, than from war. It is after we are gone.

There is a beauty in decay, even sometimes in the aftermath of destruction. As we abandon all wisdom and planning and caring about what comes after us, we will leave behind only our remains, which nature will take back and deal with as she sees fit. So I ended this piece by painting new grass, and having it start to grow up and between the bricks. Thank goodness for nature. She will always reclaim.