While I was in San Diego for JMM, I went to Balboa Park to visit the Mingei Museum. The museum is currently presenting a beautiful exhibit of vintage kantha, embroidered textiles from Bengal.
I was taken by the interesting uses of symmetry in some of the work.
This particular Baytan Kantha is from the late 19th or early 20th century. It features lotus flower and star patterns. All of these from possess order-8 rotational symmetry if you disregard coloring. The corner lotuses and the stars have order-4 rotational symmetry when color is taken into account. Although lotuses and stars are very traditional forms of patterning, to me this textile has a very modern abstract quality.
Susan Happersett