I meet Sarah Waite in June, just days before she returns to the U.K. after five years in Japan. We talk about the exhibition she will have in London in October as part of the Japan Festival 2001, agreeing to run the interview then. So now, here we are in autumn, and the time is ripe.

Sarah recently completed a three-year scholarship funded by the government to study "nihonga," which loosely translates as traditional Japanese painting. But it's not quite so simple, she says, apologizing for the state of their tiny apartment, which is halfway to being packed. (Husband John McNulty is out with baby Michael to give us some breathing space.)