There's a lot of graphic punch in a few pale marks against deep brown. With bogolan, Mali's mud-dyed textiles, the spaces around those marks can be where the drawing happens. In a traditional Bamana approach, makers paint the dark background around the shapes, then lighten the areas they've left unpainted.

Leaf dyes and iron-rich mud give the fabric its color, while the painter decides how tightly to pack the shapes or how much dark space to leave between them. A narrow gap or a broad band becomes part of the drawing, shaped as carefully as a line.

How might a familiar pattern change if you began with the spaces around it?