Windy Chien's Decade of Knot Art: Museum Acquisitions, Nobu Maui Installation, and a Planned Community Project

Key facts

• Windy Chien launched her art career ten years ago and works primarily with knots.
• Her work is in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the de Young Museum.
• Her work has been acquired by the National Geographic Society, the U.S. Department of State, Google, and Meta.
• Residential and commercial commissions have a six-month lead time.
• She created a 14-by-233-foot piece for the Rockwell Group-designed Nobu Grand Wailea restaurant in Maui on-site in nine days.
• A 100-foot-long work of intersecting links hangs in a stairwell atrium at Dropbox's San Francisco headquarters.
• Collectors Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang commissioned a piece to accompany two 1,000-year-old Tang-dynasty ceramic horses.
• She studied experimental film at San Francisco State University, owned Aquarius Records for 14 years, and joined Apple's original iTunes team.
• She spent a year learning a different knot every day and published The Year of Knots.
• Nearly 4,000 knot types are documented worldwide; Chien works with just over 360.
• She held residencies aboard an Arctic schooner and at the Eames Institute.
• She aims to partner with a museum on a community knot-tying project lasting two or three months, followed by an exhibition.