Assign by ref issue

I have an Image object that I have assigned by ref to my template.  So 
far so good, until I try to pass an array as an argument to one of the 
object's methods:

{$Image->resize($data.Inventory.image1, 124, null, true, 
array('border'=>1))}

The call works fine without the array, but with it, I get:


Fatal error: Smarty error: [in offer.tpl line 27]: syntax error: 
unrecognized tag: $Image->resize($data.Inventory.image1, 124, null, 
true, array('border'=>1)) (Smarty_Compiler.class.php, line 439)

Any ideas?

-Erich-