When Bamana women in Mali taught their daughters to make mudcloth, they passed on patterns that could express a proverb or a song. Shapes drawn from everyday objects took on meaning through their combinations, so a daughter learned what a design could say as she learned to paint it.

To put a pattern she knew onto cloth, a maker had to plan the light shapes and the dark spaces around them together. She soaked the fabric in a leaf dye that allowed iron-rich mud to leave a dark color where she painted. Applying the mud around the shapes, then bleaching the unpainted areas, brought out the pale pattern against its dark background.

That knowledge also inspired makers to combine familiar shapes in new ways and invent patterns of their own. Their designs continue to influence modern textiles around the world, and hand-painted mudcloth is collected as art. A piece made from an older cloth carries a maker’s original painting into something worn or lived with today.