Pieces Petals Leaves and Eaves: Bala Cynwyd Silk

Girih literally translates to knot in Arabic (1), and was first used by Peter J. Lu to describe a set of five tiles: a regular decagon, a regular pentagon, a concave hexagon (bowtie), an elongated hexagon, and a rhombus decorated with zigzagging lines called strapwork.(2) I utilize photographs of architectural and plant details, and montage these into the girih, taking care not to intersect the strapping lines. The five tiles are arranged in a composition that is bilaterally symmetrical, but nonperiodic. Source material for this silk work came from Bala Cynwyd. $1250 72h x 36w

Notes

1. Peter J. Lu and Paul J. Steinhardt, Decagonal and Quasi-crystalline Tilings in Medieval Islamic Architecture. Science 315 (2007): pp. 1106–1110
2. Ibid.