Animals in Colville’s paintings and prints serve as a foil to humans; they do not strive for meaning or seek answers. The ruler may be the focal point of the composition, but for the black cat, its function is irrelevant; it is an object to play with. The cat’s complete otherness undermines the underlying web of geometry that holds this, and every, Colville image together. But for the artist, that geometry symbolized by the ruler is a device for creating order out of chaos, certainty out of mystery, and knowledge out of ignorance.