Wanjiru

The blue is the sky over Gikomba market that day. The gold is what she wore to church the Sunday before, and the way the light came through her front room at four in the afternoon. I had the canvas already stretched. I had the linen because my mother brought it back from Eldoret in 2019.

I painted her hands first. The hands tell you when someone has been working since they were ten. I painted the rings she wore on her left hand, three of them, and the watch she stopped winding in 2014. I painted her looking past me, because she never looked at the camera and I didn't want her to start now.

It took eleven days. I did not eat properly. My partner kept bringing me chai I forgot to drink. On the eleventh day I cleaned the brushes and went and sat in the matatu rank for three hours and watched the buses come in from upcountry.

This is the only edition I am making. Eight prints, plus two artist proofs. The original stays with the family.