I realised as I said all this aloud to my canvas that I had conducted my entire examination of colour in English. Why so, and not in Amharic or, for a particularly scholarly investigation, Ge’ez? Well, there were good and sufficient reasons in my own history, so I need not feel too much guilt about it, but was there a sense of a brightness in , or a sickly flavour to ? I had never studied the philology of Ethiopia and did not know. It might be the journey of the rest of my life to unravel the cultural history of colour to my own satisfaction, and I had things to do first, obligations to discharge and, yes, art to make. Perhaps the work would be done better in ten years, after I had unravelled more of this fascinating digression—but art is never pure and commerce, like mortality, is uncompromising in its adherence to schedules. Annie’s investors had a right to expect timely delivery from me, and so did she.