I grind metal and stone to powder, scrape lampblack and sift dry earths, then pour from the alchemist’s retort, and oil pressed from the seed of flax. In one hand I hold a wand carved of wood and tipped with a tuft of hair; in the other I level a small flat altar with offerings of many colours. I stand before an expanse of cloth, put brush to canvas, and paint becomes light, becomes shadow, becomes flesh and spirit, becomes earth and air and fire and water, becomes everything my mind can conceive. If this is not magic, then, tell me, what is?