Lexicon -- An Exhibition of Weavings by Bhakti Ziek

I have a new exhibition up at BigTown Gallery in Rochester, VT from October 26 - November 26, 2016. It is called Lexicon and includes new weavings as well as some older ones. I have posted images on my Facebook page but will put them here too.

The Refuge series (1 - 8 shown below) are all 8"h x 6"w, woven using taqueté or plain weave structures, composed of seine twine warp (hidden) and wool, rayon chenille, and metallic yarns.

Refuge 1

Refuge 2

Refuge 3

Refuge 4

Refuge 5

Refuge 6

Refuge 7

Refuge 8

Taqueté Bands, Taqueté Rabbit and Samit Duck are part of the didactic series about structures. Some of this series could not be shown, due to space considerations, but I will put them at the end of the images.

Taqueté Bands
29.5"h x 15.5"w, 2016

Taqueté Rabbit
18"h x 26"w, 2016

Samit Duck
16.5"h x 26.5"w, 2016

I wove Florence Cross-Sections and Birds 2 in the summer of 1997 at Fondazione Lisio. They are both damask liserie, one woven by hand (Birds 2) and one woven on a fully electronic loom at Rubelli Silk Mills.

Florence Cross-Sections
31"h x 46.5"w, 1997

Birds 2
9.75"h x 7.25"w, 1997

Quote is the beginning of a series that I still have to weave. It is samitum structure; a motif handpicked on an 8 shaft loom based on a historical textile.

Quote
3.25"h x 3.5"w, 2007

Mark Goodwin made a vitrine for me to show four weavings made circa 1990 using lampas structure and some brocading.

Detail of Pink Lampas Study
80"h x 8"w

Detail of Gold Diamond Lampas Study
69"h x 8.5"w

Lampas with Brocade
6"h x 5.5"w

Supplementary Warp Study6.5"h x 8.75"w
 

There wasn't enough wall space to hang the following five pieces, but they definitely are part of the Lexicon work.

Taqueté Structures
10.5"h x 26.25", 2016

Taqueté Sunset
12"h x 14"w, 2016

Taqueté Trees
12"h x 12"w, 2016

Taqueté Described 1
15"h x 13"w, 2016

Taqueté Described 2
15"h x 14"w, 2016

This is what the gallery says about the work:

Bhakti Ziek - Projects Gallery

October 27, 2016

Bhakti Ziek doesn’t like to be asked “what is it?” about her work. She responds, “It’s a weaving.” If she were a scientist, she would be a research scientist, freely exploring possibilities without expectations of outcomes and end use. As an artist, her favorite pieces are her studies. For her exhibition, Lexicon, at the BigTown Gallery Projects Room, she has created a series investigating three ancient weave structures: taqueté, samitum, and lampas. 

Ziek is a renowned teacher (she says her “higher self” is when she is teaching), and she often leads workshops that cover these three types of interlacement, which probably developed one from the other. Ziek likes to refer to her lineage as a thread of weavers going back thousands of years. As early as the 2nd century, some of these weavers were using taqueté to make figured textiles. Today the looms have changed, but the structures that create the cloth remain the same. In Lexicon, Ziek is attempting to bring the audience into the work by explaining how they are made.

Stitched samplers, illuminated paintings, Mughal miniature paintings, and Sassanian, Safavid, and Ottoman textiles are a few of the influences Ziek sees in her work. Letters have often been a component of her work, but now they are didactic as well as visual. She says that making these weavings has been an elusive quest—that she isn’t quite there, but hopes to get there. Then she laughs and says, “isn’t all life like that; it’s all a journey of hope.”