Fiber and mixed media

you will be able to see Ellen’s creative process and learn about how tapestries are made on an upright, French style, tapestry loom, using the same techniques developed in medieval Europe.

Ellen will demo the process and interested visitors can even try their hand at weaving if they like.

Visitors can view finished work and works in progress.

Tapestry weaving is an ancient artistic medium that imbues two-dimensional imagery with tactility and permanence. Making tapestry is continually engaging, involving constant decision making and an element of risk -- risk, because one cannot go back and fix design or color choices once that area has been woven over. Also, because the work gets rolled under the beam of the loom as I go, I never see the entire tapestry until it is completely finished. Every tapestry is a bit of a surprise in the end, and always, a satisfying achievement.

Employing the resolutely analog process of tapestry weaving, my current work investigates the humanity within our technological obsessions. Inspired by the visual language of circuit board assemblies, I use the scale and physicality of my woven interpretations to reflect upon technology’s ubiquity and outsized impact on our lives. Textiles and computers have a historic connection as both rely on a binary systems. The intersection of warp and weft is the pixel manifest in cloth.

Unbeknownst to her neighbors, Ellen Ramsey has been secretly weaving tapestries in her Lake Forest Park Studio for over twenty years. She is an award-winning tapestry artist who has exhibited her work both nationally and internationally. She is a juried member of Northwest Designer Craftartists and Tapestry Artists of Puget Sound.

If you have only seen weaving on a floor loom, you might be surprised to see how different and art-based tapestry technique is. No throwing shuttles from side to side. No beater hitting against a uniform measure of cloth. No patterns! Just imagery, built slowly by hand in small areas, like individual bricks within a wall, with fine threads blended like paint to create complex color.

Once you arrive, please note that you will find Ellen’s studio via the entrance to the backyard garden on Fern Lane.

You can park in the wide driveway on Fern Lane (space for 4-7 cars) or on the main road. Please note that NE 178th Street is a narrow, winding road with no shoulder and therefore limited street parking. Those who do park on the street will walk down a short steep one lane alley called Fern Lane to reach the house and drive.

The studio is also accessible from a single lane alley called Lake View Lane that parallels Bothell Way.

Because of the steepness of Fern Lane, visitors who park in the driveway will be guided to exit via Lake View Lane.

Visitors will enter the daylight basement studio from the back yard garden, accessed from Fern Lane. They will walk on a flagstone path and ascend 5 shallow garden steps with no railing before entering the house. Once in the house, there are 3 stair steps (with a hand-hold) required to enter the studio.