Tying the knot

WINDY CHIEN, Studio Windy Chien

WORK • Wednesday Routine

WINDY CHIEN • artist • Studio Windy Chien
Neighborhood you live in: After 34 years in the Mission, I recently moved to Twin Peaks.

It’s Wednesday morning. What’s the scene at your workplace? 
My studio is in the Heath Ceramics building in the Mission. Because we limit studio visitors and meetings to Tuesdays, Wednesdays are for focusing on what we’re making. And I LOVE days like this. Our small, mighty team of three creates one large work every week. Our waiting list is six months long, so we’re working on something a collector or client has been anticipating for a while. 

I eschew working with galleries and prefer to represent myself, so we’re not only making the works, we’re also negotiating sales, shipping, installing, and so much more. My production artist’s hands are full measuring, cutting and knotting rope, sanding wood, constructing shipping boxes, and more. My studio manager is communicating with the outside world, managing projects overall, and more. When not knotting, I’m experimenting, innovating and playing. The goal is to constantly evolve the art.

What’s on the agenda for today? 
I’ll finish knotting a 5’ x 10’ piece for my home; we recently moved to a midcentury place on Twin Peaks and have a huge wall in the living room calling out for a beautiful rose gold Circuit Board. I can’t believe it’s taken me eight years to find the time to make something for my own house! Then I’ll start on a creamy white Circuit Board for a collector who lives on Vancouver Island. I also need to finish sketching a massive (200 feet wide) piece for a hotel on Maui.

Any restaurant plans today, tonight, this weekend? 
I love getting an after-work cocktail at Osito, the restaurant catty-corner from the studio. Chef Seth Stowaway just redid the bar there with blue Venetian plaster walls. It’s a gorgeous space. I have a piece in their dining room — the composition of the knotting is inspired by the overhead forest canopy because Osito is a live-fire restaurant.

During the workweek, my all-Asian team and I like to order Hon’s Wun-Tun House’s pork and shrimp dumpling soup. Their broth is the best. We also love our neighbors at Flour + Water Pasta Shop for their Italian subs. You can see some of my pieces there too.

How about a little leisure or culture?
I love going to Minnesota Street Project to see what’s on the walls. This is boring, but if I’m honest, one thing I look forward to every week is the Noe Valley Farmers Market. I used to go to Alemany, but since I moved, NV is closest. It’s where I get my favorite food in the world: Early Girl tomatoes from Tomatero Farm. Those girls grow the most flavorful tomatoes I’ve ever had.

Any weekend getaways?
People sleep on The Inn at Newport Ranch, but it is an astonishingly beautiful place right on the wild Mendocino coast. You look down off the unfenced cliff edge and there are waves crashing hundreds of feet below. They also steward the redwoods on their land and cultivate their own food. The architecture is that ’70s hand-built wood style that Bay Area treasure Lloyd Kahn likes to champion. I’m teaching a workshop retreat there this November! 

What was your last great vacation?
Every summer, I sail with the Sailing Collective. You get a catamaran that sleeps 10, bring a bunch of friends and a chef, and it’s utter bliss. We’ve sailed Sardinia and Corsica, Greece, the Amalfi Coast, Croatia, the Bahamas, and Cape Cod. Sailing, which I found through my work as a professional knot tyer, feels like discovering one of the keys to life. I plan to sail with them every year until I die.

What store or service do you always recommend?
Bryr Clogs makes the chicest, most advanced, and forward-looking clogs — with colors to die for. The Bryr shop in the Dogpatch is gorgeous, and everything is designed and made by women. Right now, I’m test-wearing a new style that’s going to break. the. internet. It’s that good.