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.”

Navigating Truth

Here is a picture of the top of the Chinese chest that is in our dining room. Does it look like I am someone who would enjoy craft fairs?

Some objects we have collected in our travels.

Ethnographic fairs--YES--but craft fairs....? Yesterday, however, I dragged my husband away from painting the house (thunderstorms) and down to a famous one in New Hampshire. Once again I find myself thinking that I should try to make functional textiles; that the economic climate is only good for the .000001 percent of the artists who are showing in top NYC galleries; and that $25 is probably the price point of what most people are willing to spend on non-essentials. I thought maybe I would get inspired by seeing what others are doing. Instead I found myself thinking of one of Fran Lebowitz's statements in Public Speaking (the Martin Scorsese excellent documentary on this outrageous and brilliant writer). She was telling an audience that just because you think something doesn't mean you have to write it--in fact, please don't share it with us. If I remember correctly, she even specifically mentioned blogs (I do note her words, even as I ignore them and write). So change writing to THINGS and you know how Mark and I felt at the fair.

There was a bright spot though in the middle of the tents, where Sarah Heimann had a booth of her beautiful, incredibly intricate carved ceramics. Seeing her work was worth the price of admission. One of her pots would look very good indeed on our Chinese cabinet top.

Sara Heimann with her wonderful hand carved ceramics.

This might not seem related, but I have been busy reading cookbooks and chef's memoirs this summer. Have you read Blood, Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton? I might not want to become her close friend (and what is the likelihood that I will ever get a chance at that?) but I loved her book and the truths she writes. I related to so many things she wrote about, relating her chef's experiences to my weaving experiences--being invited to a panel on women's chefs and getting quieter and quieter as she internally compared the reality of her life to the bromides of enthusiasm the others were throwing out; or her "lack of enthusiasm" as she approached Vermont thinking about people in cars going the other way "...fellow travelers, people like us who enjoy other human contact and human activity and who don't need to be secluded on a hundred acres without even a house pet..." And now I am almost done with Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. I know I could never keep up with his drugs, and drinking, sex, and rock and roll but I really get it when he talks about good chefs failing when they stop doing what they do well and think they can do everything. So maybe I won't go the functional textile route, other than for my own use, or if I do, I will have to stay close to my personal likes and my strengths, and ignore the market research of finding out what others are selling.

Scale model of upcoming exhibition at Fuller Craft Museum
(work by Fuyuko Matsubara on back wall, Deborah Carlson on side wall, and Bhakti Ziek's Nomad on right wall)

In light of that wisdom to stay true to one's self ("Follow your bliss" is the way Joseph Campbell put it), I am refinishing the six panels of my weaving Nomad. I am going to be in an exhibition at The Fuller Craft Museum opening September 15, 2012 with an artists' reception on Sunday, September 30th. Cyndy Barbone, Deborah Carlson, Fuyuko Matsubara and myself will be exhibiting together. Cyndy and I put together a scale model of the exhibition and decided I should put the panels together. That led me to decide that I should stretch them onto bars so I can exhibit them taunt--the way I see the cloth on the loom--the way I like seeing the work as I make it--the way I intend it in my mind. It was going to cost almost $700 to purchase frames and canvas, and they still would have to be put together (by Mark, of course) so I was thrilled when he said he could make them from scratch (another words, stop painting the house for a week and work for me). So it is only costing one-quarter of the purchased price and it is much better because these are exactly the size I need.

Panel 2 (of 6) from Nomad by Bhakti Ziek, 2010

When I was weaving Nomad, thinking about how large the world is, how vast the ocean, how dark the deep waters on a night without the moon, remembering living on an island in the Yucatan for eight months where the sound of the waters was always with me, I could see that the words, which map places I have lived or travelled and that take the shape of the continents of the earth, were very subtle, floating in and out of the ground water. I decided to give myself permission to be as subtle as possible, to create an experience where one has to sit with the piece and look long and hard before the piece revealed its secrets. I know I have created a difficult work for these times, where looking seems to need big panels of explanation next to a work, or a voice tour that you access as you tour an exhibition, or those recently ubiquitous QR codes. But I hope the new installation will invite some people to look, experience, and be inspired. A dark night, moonless....just you and the vastness of the ocean, the sky, the air, your memories, and your thoughts.

Just want to end by saying I had a wonderful day at King Arthur Bakery last month, the gift of my generous friend Steve Ford (superb baker and artist extraordinaire, partner in Ford/Forlano). He took me to a sour dough bread workshop (Amber Eisler was the excellent teacher), and Mark to a rye bread workshop. They have remodeled their facilities and the class room was terrific. I still have to learn my way around the new store, but I am sure I will.

Amber Eisler teaching sourdough bread making at King Arthur; Steve Ford and Clive in middle picture left; the classes beautiful results bottom right.

Art and Food

Before any of our trips to NYC I always spend time on the computer doing research. I make lists of all the museums and galleries, their locations and what is showing. It doesn't matter that I have copies of the gallery guide, or I have done this before, or even that I think I can find most of them blindfolded, I still make my lists. I also make lists of potential restaurants--and the top item I look for are dim sum restaurants. It is nice to see that Nom Wah Tea Parlor, the first place my mother took me for dim sum when I was a child, is still open and recently getting good press, after a period of some questionable reports. Sadly three trips to NYC and I still haven't fit dim sum into the equation. I think it was easier when galleries were in Soho, but Chelsea is just a bit off the route to Chinatown.

Laduree, Madison Avenue and 71st Street, NYC

We did get to Laduree though. Be sure to click HERE and see their website--the animation just seems so perfect for their product and image. It's located just south of the Whitney Museum, and the Biennial was definitely on our to do list. It was pouring rain and as we approached the store we heard one man say to his companion, "The line would be winding around the corner if it wasn't raining so hard." So we lucked out.

Cookbook with Macaron Recipe

I purchased their cookbook, Sucre, after reading about it on the Not So Humble Pie blog. It came packaged in a box that looked like it was full of sweets, and when you open the box you find this softly colored tissue paper and small book with gold paper edges and a velvet cover. The pictures are scrumptous and I remember that Mark, my friend Marianne, and I just sat there and turned every page in the book--oohing and ahhing the whole time.

A variety of Laduree Macarons--a bit weary from being hauled around all day but still delicious.

I got a selection of different macarons for dessert that night. We cut them into quarters and critiqued them with our friends as we ate them. The raspberry one just seemed like regular jam inside, and the vanilla one (I think) had a sort of marshmellow-like filling that I didn't like at all (and I like marshmellow), but all the rest were delicious. It was so much fun to actually buy and taste them but I think in the future I will just make my own.

Images from the Whitney Biennial: Werner Herzog (top), Lutz Bacher (left middle top), Elaine Reichek (right middle top), Statement by Forrest Bess (left middle bottom), weaving by Travis Meinolf for installation by Kai Althoff (right middle bottom), Forrest Bess (bottom)

The Whitney Biennial 2012 is closed now but we managed to get there during the final week. I thought it was a relatively quiet show. Textiles are definitely a popular medium now and Elaine Reichek's room and the shroud woven by Travis Meinolf were both prominent. I have been a fan of Werner Herzog since seeing his Nosferatu in 1979, and as I approached the space where his installation was located, the music coming out of it let me know I had arrived. If you click on his name in the previous sentence, you can listen to a discussion he had with the curators of the Biennial on May 17th. Does anyone else have such a wonderful hypnotic mesmerizing enthusiastic voice? He opens my heart to wonder.

Opening of Silence at Masters & Pelavin, curator Jaanika Peerna (left), Anne Lindberg (second from left) and other artists in the exhibition; "Sleep" by Anne Lindberg (below)

We timed this trip so we could attend an opening of the exhibition Silence at Masters & Pelavin, which included work by our friend Anne Lindberg. It was packed, so the title Silence was like an oxymoron--but then the curator, Jaanika Peerna, asked for a moment of silence and a sense of peace took over the room. Mostly I get to encourage and applaud my friends these days through Facebook and email--we are all so spread out in space--so it was really meaningful to be able to see Anne (and her husband) and share her success in person.


On the way home we spent hours at DIA Beacon. No pictures are allowed so you will just have to go in person and experience the work, the place, the ambiance. My advice: GO! To me it was definitely a holy pilgrimage. This is the art that I understand as "Art." Robert Ryman, Sol LeWitt, Agnes Martin, Blinky Palermo, Walter De Maria...and the list goes on. GO!     

Already Memories

Raining in NYC

We came home from NYC with more than the Pisco Brandy that we bought. Not surprising since it rained the whole time we were there and we walked around with wet feet for days. We live a very isolated life in Vermont, so the crowds in the museums, galleries and buses must have given us some germ that has caused constant coughing, sneezing and hacking since May 25. Finally we both went to doctors and are on the mend.

Why the Pisco Brandy? Well I made a Bobby Flay dinner for a party a month or so ago that included his Pisco Sour Sangria. I had gotten all the ingredients and then discovered that none of the liquor stores in NH or VT (state-run) sell Pisco. I substituted Grappa, and it was delicious, but I put Pisco on my NYC list. Every store I went in had several choices. I haven't tried it yet but it is something to look forward to later this summer.

We went across the Tappan Zee Bridge into Westchester, then the Bronx, over another two bridges into Brooklyn and later that day through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel into Manhattan. We must have paid every toll possible in just a few days, and it did feel like we were hemorrhaging money. We went to Brooklyn so I could have a discussion/critique of my work with the curator of the Drawing Center's Viewing Program. It feels like perk enough to have my work included in the Viewing Program (if you click HERE it takes you to the home page where you can enter my name in the "Name or Keyword Search" area and go to my page), but I was thrilled to have an opportunity to meet with Nina Katchadourian. You may have seen The New Yorker blog article on her work, which was going around the Internet recently. I don't feel ready to discuss the generous conversation I had with Nina; I am still digesting and distilling it, seeing where it takes me and holding it close. But I will share my thoughts when I am ready. Meanwhile please go to my page, which I feel very good about, and give me some feedback.

Row Houses in Windsor Terrace area of Brooklyn
(unknown photographer)

We were just blocks away from the Windsor Place house we called home from 1983-1987, so of course we took a drive down nostalgia lane. The street is a facade of connected row houses. Every house on the block has been upgraded with vinyl siding in every pastel color imaginable, except the house where we lived. It had its familiar asphalt-siding (I always called it linoleum siding) and door with peeling paint and general air of weariness. It is our fish that got away. But if we had bought it when we could, I would never have gone to graduate school, or become a college professor, or lived in as many states as we have tried.

Ernesto Neto (above); Richard Avedon (below)

We headed for Chelsea galleries after Brooklyn. This trip we only had a chance to go there two afternoons, so we didn't see everything, but a little inspiration can go a long way. Nina recommended the Ernesto Neto show at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery and the Richard Avedon which was showing across the street at one of the Gagosian spaces. I like Neto's work, have watched it for years, but I am not so crazy about the recent spate of "gallery as amusement park" exhibitions. Bonakdar does have the kindest, friendliest staff that I have encountered in years, and I guess they need this attitude to deal with all the families with small children that I saw climbing all over the Neto's (as he intended). I loved the Avedon's because, like Patti Smith's "Just Kids", it brought me right back to my formative years. Ginsburg was always a hero of mine (first time I heard him read was in NYC around the time some of these photos were taken [he was so young!]) and it is amazing to stand in front of these huge images and study the people. Big art is so impressive and I am still struggling with the idea of how I can make my work big, bigger, biggest and still make it myself (which I want to do) and not physically destroy myself while making it.

Well, I am not done with the trip, but will stop for today. Have to go outside and scrape paint from our enormous house which just feels bigger with every scraping motion. 

Anchor Point

New York Happiness

While thinking about moving again (nomadic to the core), I heard myself saying about one possibility, "but it's too far away." So then I had to ask, "too far from what?" and realized that New York City is still my anchor point. I was born in the city, and though raised on Long Island, I always knew it was where I would go when I finished college. It is the only place where I have my bearings. I know north, south, east and west when I am on those streets. A trip to New York is always anticipated with excitement, and savored afterwards. This past week we went there, though most of the trip involved activities near the city rather than in the city. It's too much to share in one post, so I will begin here, and try to return in a timely manner to tell the rest.

Gail Hovey and Pat Hickman in front of a work by Lillian Elliot

We spent the first night overlooking the Hudson River in Rockland County with Pat Hickman and Gail Hovey. Their home is full of textiles, ethnographic and contemporary. It confirms a kinship I feel with them and with their curiosity and creativity. Their move from Hawaii to here has brought them back into the thick of a cultural pulse that I long for. Before finding their house, they found Pat's studio, which we visited the next morning. Gail has dedicated writing space in their home. Clearly they have their priorities right.

GAGA Arts Center
Pat Hickman (top left); Step Gorin (top right);
Eric David Laxman and Pat Hickman (bottom right)

Pat's studio is in an old calico mill, now called the Garner Arts Center (GAGA). In the short time we were there we met several other artists who have space in the buildings. Steph Gorin, owner of Loop, is just down the hall from Pat. She was just back from the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival where she was selling her fiber and yarn. (Someday I am going to make it to that event.) She has a wonderful smile and enthusiasm for what she does, and allowed me to photograph her equipment. As an owner of a high tech loom (my beloved TC-1), I could really appreciate her equipment and the unique yarns she creates for others to use. (By the way, did you know the TC-2 is launched and that Vibeke Vestby will be bringing them to Convergence this July?) We also met Eric David Laxman, a sculptor whose studio was badly damaged from Hurricane Irene. He was actually clearing it out for a move to a new home studio, but he still has a gallery at GAGA. We were also introduced to several other artists, and left appreciating the support community gives to each other, and at the same time what dedicated studio space opens up for creative work.

National Basketry Organization Quarterly Review
Spring 2012
Pat Hickman article by Catharine K. Hunter

When I was a student in the late 1970s, the collaborative baskets of Pat Hickman and Lillian Elliot were very prominent in the fiber world. I think it is one of the great things about this field that people have always been approachable and friendly. I'm not embarrassed to say that I feel awe when I realize that I have become friends with Pat; that she and Gail welcomed us to their home and the conversations reminded me of why I am a weaver and how much I love textiles (some of them). We all have changed over the years, just as the field has changed, and I certainly see textiles being used by artists everywhere--but the identity with this material is not the same today as it used to be. We have changed too, but there is some fundamental devotion to the lineage of textiles that is essential for me--and I am glad to find this devotion alive and well in Pat, even though fiber is too narrow a definition to describe her work. She gave me a copy of the National Basketry Organization (NBO) Quarterly Journal with an excellent article on her work written by Catharine K. Hunter. The image above shows the magazine article, with one of my favorite sculptures by her, Garlic.


In the fall when I went to NYC, I also intended to do several posts about the trip, and instead I only did one, and then stopped posting for months and months. This time I promise to continue in a day or two.

Bloom

My favorite tree is in bloom.

Just when I think winter will never end, the buds start showing up and there is hope. This year the buds appeared, then there was a freeze and I panicked--maybe they wouldn't bloom. But here they are.

Their beauty so strong that they get me out of the house to look closer, and to share with you.

This bloom reminds me of the incredible painting by Van Gogh that is on display at the Philadelphia Art Museum in the exhibition Van Gogh Up Close. It closes tomorrow but moves on to the National Gallery of Canada in Ottowa, May 25 to September 3, 2012. The painting comes right at the end of the exhibition, and clearly the curators also feel the power of this painting since they put it as the first illustration in the catalog and as a two-page detail at the end. Almond Blossom, from 1890, shows a branch of the flowering tree silhouetted against a fantastic blue-green sky. When I saw it I almost burst into tears. It has nothing contrived about it. It's not cleaver, or witty, or conceptually smart--it simply conveys an absolutely present communication between the artist and the tree--so honest that anyone looking at the painting must feel the exhilaration of being alive. It is what I wish of my work, and why I appreciate the tree outside my window.

Thank you for the encouragement to continue writing this blog that came in emails and online. It makes me happy to share my thoughts with you; keeps me connected from my corner of the world. I do post in facebook fairly often, so if you aren't my friend there, please send a request. You can like my professional page (bhakti ziek weaver) or ask to be friends on my personal page (bhakti ziek). Or do both--why not?

New York, New York

Beginning and Ending of Trip

Just back from a week in New York City. We went there primarily for art but of course I took advantage of the fact that macarons are everywhere and did some scientific research on taste. Prices ranged from $1.95 to $3.00 per cookie, and texture and flavors varied considerably. They all looked pretty but I would not purchase any of them a second time. On the other hand, the cappuccino pictured above at the Espresso Bar on 6th Avenue near 57th Street was definitely something to repeat.

New York Moments

The weather was beautiful, the moon sublime, and the city familiar and strange at the same time. We noticed so many wonderful new buildings, and visited some classics, like the Chrysler Building above right. We made pilgrimages to some art supply stores, resisting temptation until we got to Kremer Pigments, middle left above. It wasn't just the seductive shelves of color, but the kindness of the two people working there that convinced us to make purchases. I found the current bible of natural dyes there (Dominique Cardon's Natural Dyes) and snapped it up (okay, Amazon would have been less but this place had character).

We went to museums and galleries (I will post about some later) and were amazed at the crowds viewing art. I remember turning to Mark and asking, "Do all these people really love art?" He reminded me of the high entry fees for entering the museums, so clearly they must have some commitment to be there. In the past I could always find an area of the MET that was quiet and off the beaten path--the crowds staying in the current blockbuster, the art lovers wandering into the corners--but this trip every room of the MET (and we probably entered most of them) was crowded.

The city seems much cleaner and upscale in all the neighborhoods than before. We went north, south, east and west and it was very rare to see someone asking for money. The one street dwelling that I saw had an Ikea chair like one I used to own. Of course I am older than when I last visited New York (it has been almost 11 years), but the population of the city also seemed much younger and wealthier than I remembered. I was a resident of the city at 21, so I know about "owning" the city, about posturing and attitude, but we did it on a shoestring. Even today I feel hailing a taxi is an outrageous way to spend money. The 7 Day Metro Cards that we purchased made the buses and subway extremely easy to use.

This trip was really a "grant" from two wonderful friends who went to Portugal and invited us to stay in their apartment. We missed seeing them (luckily had dinner with one of them the last night) but we were able to spend time with some other friends. David Reisman and Mark (above bottom right) studied art together at University of Kansas in the late '70s--and they are both still making art. Going to Chelsea galleries with him was lots of fun. 

Egyptian Order at the MET

When I got home I noticed that Mary Early had posted an interesting article on Facebook about organizing things and it reminded me of these images I took at the MET in the Egyptian area. Aren't the stacks of linen wonderful?

Just a note to say that the exhibition I am in with Pat Adams, at BigTown Gallery, has been extended until October 23, 2011. Things are getting back to normal in Rochester, Vermont with many of the roads accessible now, but that town has been badly hurt and if anyone wants to contribute to helping this town that truly has a heart, you can make a donation. Click HERE for a link. New York Times mentions Anni Mackay, owner of BigTown Gallery, as one of the town heroes.

Art Trip

Empress by Bhakti Ziek, 2011

handwoven jacquard using shaded satins

I am finishing the work for the upcoming exhibition I am having at BigTown Gallery. I will be exhibiting with Pat Adams, a wonderful painter. For this show I am mounting my work on stretched linen so the linen shows as a border, the way ethnographic textiles are often mounted. The exhibition runs from August 24th to September 25th, with an artists' reception on August 27th.

Mark and I had an art trip last week. We met my cousins at Mass Moca and also went to the Clark with them. Carol is a painter so we were all serious viewers. The Nari Ward exhibition at Mass Moca was worth the trip. He has made a spectacular sculpture from the floor boards that were used in the previous Anselm Kiefer exhibition. There was a boat in the room, and this huge basket form based on a fishing trap. In the next room he had wooden stalls with images from textile sample books. And beyond that he had a room of foam snowmen encrusted with debris both natural and man-made.

Nu Colossus by Nari Ward at Mass Moca

Stall by Nari Ward at Mass Moca

Mango Tourists by Nari Ward at Mass Moca

Of course a visit to the Sol LeWitt murals is always a treat for me. There are some that I stand in wonder in front of, and others that I shake my head and run past, but all together, they are always powerful and exciting to see.

Details of Sol LeWitt Murals at Mass Moca

This trip we bought the ticket that gave us access to both The Clark and Mass Moca. We all wanted to see the El Anatsui sculptures that were on display in the Tadao Ando Stone Hill Center up the hill from the main musuem. Everything looks good in that space. We also saw the Pissarro exhibition but by that time I think I had seen enough. It was a long day, beautiful drive, great to be with family, and wonderful to see contemporary art--everything fed us.

Sculptures by El Anatsui at The Clark