Nancy Whittington Leaf Arabesque For me the pictorial space is a place to connect the naturalistic with the symbolic. Typically I use only one or two motifs, plus the spaces in between, to create what I like to call “patterned narratives.” Their stories are told not in words, but in the language of symmetry. In this work, a familiar nature shape repeats itself in a pattern of growth. A simple change in symmetry (6th vertical row from the left) yields an unexpected, vivid flowering.