Patricia Bentley
The Patterned Imagination examines certain visual repeat patterns in order to better understand their unique role in the production of cultural meanings. The specific focus of the study is on a constellation of patterns that emerge from magic squares, especially on West African textiles in an Islamic context. Magic squares are represented in patterns on many Islamic West African textiles as talismans with the power to effect protection and healing for the wearer. A pattern is also a blueprint, a guide for making something, and it is in this sense of the word that I contend the magic square acts as a "pattern engine" in West African visual cultures.
The textiles examined are in the collections of the Textile Museum of Canada, the British Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The study analyzes how the meaning of their patterns has changed through their move from their originating space into an institutional space.
Interdisciplinary Studies at York enabled me to pursue the aspects of mathematics, art, and cultural history that relate to the study o f pattern. Throughout, Jamie Scott perceptively encouraged and advised me in my project’s direction. I felt privileged to be a student in the program.
I also would like to acknowledge the support and guidance o f the following individuals and extend to them my warmest thanks. My supervisory committee, Leslie Korrick, Steve Bailey, and Margaret Sinclair, offered me valuable insights and suggestions as I chose my topic and began my research, and cogent editing as I wrote the chapters. When Professor Sinclair withdrew due to illness, Ruba Kana’an stepped in, providing the expert knowledge of Islamic art, and sensitivity to its place in the West African milieu, that my project needed in its later stages. I am also very grateful to Mary Leigh Morbey and Zulfikar Hirji for their help and advice. It has been an honour to work with all of them.