CHAPTER 1: Notes on Composing and Composition

The importance of composition cannot be underestimated. Anytime anyone is working with materials or processes and trying to establish a desired relationship among the components of an object or process in which the composition will be expressed, there is the need for composition. Composition is a matter of composing, but composing what? Composing leads its life in relationships between what went before and what comes later. To be able to express an object, or better yet, to be able to make an object that is expressive, requires attention to the relationships in the work. To be able to say of a painting that it has a wonderful sense of balance, or that it suggests timing in execution, or that it operates in a domain that is ethereal in character, all of these require that components be organized so that they constitute a composition that is relevant to a creator’s aims.