On January 6th, 2023 my boyfriend left the country to volunteer in Ukraine. He ‘deployed’ for 5.5 long months while I buried my brain in paint to cope with the fear he would never come back.

Rota Fortunae is the wheel of the goddess Fortuna who spins it at random, dictating who will experience great misfortune or sudden good fortune. She also was thought to spin the wheel to determine quality and length of life.

I was taken back to my child self, powerlessly bound by my heart to ride the unforeseeably long carousel which would decide the rest of my life. I crafted this narrative through 10+ symbols to therapeutically process what I was experiencing at the time.