Properties of Tapestry Cloth, Rama Ganesan Online Mar 14, 2026-VIDEO ONLY

Description

Rama Ganesan’s tapestry work explores the textural and dimensional properties of woven cloth to render botanical and biophilic pieces. While there is a great satisfaction in creating flat tapestry, she turns her attention to exploring how cloth creates three-dimensional forms. There is a natural parallel between cloth and plant, as cloth folds, it puckers, it ruffles and pleats. By exploring how cloth behaves as she creates it, Rama Ganesan gets a glimpse into how a leaf is folded in the bud, and then expands, perhaps to form a spathe or pitcher; later, how it wrinkles and curls in senescence. She works on an implicit assumption that all forms in nature, be they plants or tapestry weaving, emerge from underlying mechanical principles. VIDEO ONLY, AVAILABLE UNTIL MAY 14, 2026.

Her methods include, but are not limited to, directional weaving, pulled warp techniques, finishing methods for shaped tapestry and ways to display pieces. Rama will address the challenges of making dimensional tapestry and how she has attempted to overcome them.

About the Speaker: Rama Ganesan grew up in India and the UK and has lived in the US for almost 40 years. She was trained first as a scientist and then in business, and spent over a decade in each of these areas. Although she often had a fiber art practice it is only recently that she has dedicated much of her time to one art form, tapestry weaving. She became a vegan in 2013, and only uses plant fibers in her work. She became interested in native plants as a way to support wildlife and now the practice of plant tending and tapestry weaving have become inextricable. Exploring plant growth and development through tapestry has engendered new questions and new ways to understand nature.