Naomi Howard
One of Wescover’s Creators, Belen Senra at Ranran Design who is based in Indonesia, combines traditional textile styles with a modern charm and her vibrant life experiences to create beautiful, eclectic macrame wall hangings. In her work, Belen values bringing beauty to your home while minimizing environmental impact and supporting small businesses.
We asked Belen some questions about macrame wall hangings, and she has graciously shared her stories and process with the Wescover community. The techniques involve in macramé knot-tying can be traced back to thirteenth century Arabic decorative weavers who used the knots to secure loose ends of woven textiles, like towels and shawls. However, decorative knot-tying can also be traced back independently to third century China where it was used for ceremonial textiles and wall hangings. I believe the key to producing macrame art is being different and taking risks: doing so will elevate your knots and compositions to another level.
Still, I am always open to using different fibers depending on the country I am visiting or living in and am always excited to hear new ideas and requests from customers. I travel widely across the world and share my time and experiences with local artisans, and specifically women, who have amazing, diverse talents.
For example, in places like Bali (where I spend many months every year), you need to become very creative in terms of materials, as it is not easy to find fibers suitable for macrame.
As each client is different, some have a very clear idea of what they want from the start while others can spend more than 8 days changing their mind, so I need to continue iterating and working in order to create a final design that the customers love.
Defining the design Collecting the materials and colors (sometimes even hand-dying the fibers) Occasionally, creating a drawing outline of the design Creating the piece (from tying the first knot to the last) Allowing the client to evaluate the piece for corrections Correcting anything if necessary (sometimes implies unmaking interwoven aspects) Styling and photographing the piece for clients and social media (includes photo editing) Packing and shipping the item (continuing to track the package until received) Enjoy your new macrame art! Macrame wall hangings perfectly combine modern style and fashion with culturally-inspired, one-of-a-kind fiber art.
