Windy Chien

Windy Chien

Queen of Knots

BY MICHAEL DAKS

Windy Chien is a Chinese American artist whose career has included owning Aquarius Records for fourteen years, possibly the coolest record shop in San Francisco, then eight years at Apple as iTunes product manager, before publishing her book The Year of Knots in 2016, and embarking on her current career as a fine artist.

As a child of Chinese immigrants, Chien always felt like an outsider. During high school she finally realized that this could be a form of liberation. “When you’re an outsider, people don’t know what to expect from you, so you are free to self-define.

My identity has always been driven by being active in the worlds I’m most excited by, whether that be underground music, ground-breaking tech, and the world of knotting.”

Pattern, repetition, and scale are three of several strategies she employs when seeking to find a singular knot’s ultimate expressive potential. “My favorite knot to tie is the Five-Strand Star Knot. During The Year of Knots, in which I taught myself one new knot every day for one year, the Star Knot was hands down the most difficult to learn. It brought me to tears; it was so difficult.”

These days, she can do it with her eyes closed. She makes good use of any scraps and short ends by gifting Star Knots to studio visitors. Several months into The Year of Knots, She nailed each daily knot to the wall of what was then her studio (i.e. her living room), she realized they were holding together beautifully, like a growing amoeba.

I realized that by the end of the year I’d have a massive installation of 366 knots (2016 was a leap year); this was amazing because I hadn’t set out to make art; I had undertaken the project as a journey of self-education, not art.

Read more at https://issuu.com/rareluxuryliving/docs/troora_san_francisco_2021_pages/276