Formline is not decoration applied to a surface — it is the surface, organised. A single continuous band swells at joints and tapers into terminations, linking ovoids and U-forms until the field is completely filled and the negative shapes are as deliberate as the positive ones.

The system takes its ground from polished Slatechuck argillite, the dense black shale quarried on Graham Island since about 1800, and its colour rank from the painted tradition: black leads, red follows, muted blue-green fills. That order is a rule, not a preference.