Oh my word. So. Many. Knots! Sigh. This beautiful, year-long project is the work of San Francisco based artist Windy Chien… and that’s all I’m going to say, because she explains it perfectly :

I made one new knot every day in 2016: The Year of Knots

On the fourth day of January in 2016, I was at home in San Francisco in my backyard woodworking shed sweeping up sawdust, tidying the workshop, aware of the new year ahead. I wondered, idly, what it might bring. What happened next—in a flash—was completely unexpected: I had an actual ‘lightbulb moment,’ the kind I thought happened only in fiction. In the space of seconds, an entire year of knots laid itself out to me. Yes, knots—as in rope, tied … 

2016 unfurled itself in my mind as I swept: I would learn one new knot each and every day of the year. I would post the daily results on Instagram, not only to keep myself accountable, but as a reference and a record. I would include captions explaining the knots’ names, histories, and utility, so that others could learn alongside me. I had no idea then if others would be interested, but I hoped they might be. I instantly intuited the project’s self-imposed design constraints—such as making the knots out of white rope and photographing them on a white background for visual consistency and in order to emphasize what I find to be the most compelling element of the art of knot-making: the line. 

I would allow myself to fully and deeply explore the aesthetics of objects we usually think of as merely functional. Knots seem humble but are feats of engineering. What is the direction of pull? Is the knot made from a single line, or more than one strand? Does the knot move or is it fixed? Where is its tension?

The Year of Knots gave me many rich things.

1. A daily ritual that allowed me to quickly access the blissful state of flow that had previously been so elusive to me.
2. My art school, where I learned the elemental building blocks of art: line, form, shape, space, texture, and color.
3. A history lesson, where I learned knots’ context in nautical life, the material and physical properties of rope, and how for any given situation there’s a knot that is right while all the others are wrong.
4. Most importantly, the knots are a new language. Every new knot is like learning another letter in the alphabet. Alphabets and letters form words, and words communicate. So the knots are a new form of communication, to make, as Rebecca Solnit puts it, “the mute material world come to life.” 

Love.

{Currently installed at Facebook HQ in Menlo Park, CA}