This is an example of composition as balancing act. About forty years ago Professor Scott of the University of Arizona had us strip works of David (pronounced Dah-Veed) and Poussin (pronounced Poo-Saaan, sort of)  to the essentials of gestural lines. Presumably, if the sum of the angles relative to the bottom edge of a given painting add up to zero, or close, it’s a Good Composition.

I suppose it was an enlightening exercise, but it had all the excitement of diagramming sentences, and about as much practical use.  Then as now I’ll look at a drawing in progress and do my best to intuit how best to engage the viewer with the next enhancement (or, as with some erasure, disenhancement). I’d rather taste the soup of a drawing than diagram its sentence any day.

The acrostics remain without poetry. If the drawing is good enough to remake on non-scratch paper, I’ll do a remake and work out the words. If you’d like to collaborate with an obscure artist/poet, feel free to fill in some poetry. If you do, show and tell via comment, and you’ll make my day!