I had the great joy of seeing Bhakti Ziek’s show at Form & Concept Gallery in Santa Fe this week. The show is a retrospective of over 50 years of her weaving life.
Bhakti Ziek’s show, A Tenuous Thread is open in March and April of 2024 at Form & Concept in Santa Fe, NM.
It is hard to believe when you meet Bhakti that she could possibly be old enough to have been weaving for half a century, but she did start young. She has been an incredible mentor to me and for those of you in the Design Solutions for the Artist/Weaver, Season 1 class, I recommend watching her interview there. It is inspiring.
Bhakti Ziek speaking to a group of fiber artists from New Mexico and Colorado about her work. Work to the left is Wheel of Life.
Narrative
Bhakti’s work is full of narrative. The large installation piece that anchors the show, Wheel of Life: The Passing on of Knowledge was her thesis project at Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1989. The work uses various dye techniques and a lampas structure. Each panel is 44 x 33.5 inches. There are many stories behind this work including a reference to her father who was a cello player. The piece’s main narrative about Christian monks in 552 AD who relieved China of some of their silkworms by hiding them in their hollow walking sticks thus ending China’s silk supremacy. The story of this work has a spy-thriller feel to it.
From the curator statement about this piece which is a good summary of a lot of Bhakti’s work: “Ziek’s early-career magnum opus explores many of the themes that would inspire her throughout her half-century weaving career: the cross-cultural interchange of textile technologies and motifs, knowledge-sharing in craft community, and the intellect-driving selection of materials and techniques that became storytelling conduits.”
Bhakti Ziek, Wheel of Life: The Passing on of Knowledge as seen from above at Form and Concept Gallery in Santa Fe. Each panel is 44 x 33.5 inches.
I’ve heard Bhakti talk about the weave structure lampas on several occasions and her Wheel of Life piece which anchors this show is the piece that finally helped me understand this weave structure a bit better (having never woven it myself). The structure has two sides with a ground that connects them. The structure might be considered a double weave and when you look at the panels of this piece, you suddenly realize that there is a whole lot going on in its construction before you even consider the imagery.
The panels you see in the two images directly below are the two sides of the same piece. If you can go see this show, make sure to walk around this piece and look carefully at each side of the panels.
Bhakti Ziek, Wheel of Life panel and group of fiber artists listening to the artist talk
Bhakti Ziek, the same Wheel of Life panel from the other side.
Self-referential
Bhakti’s work can also be self-referential. One of the most fascinating things to me about watching Bhakti work is how she carefully matches the structure she uses to the idea she wants to convey. And then how she often integrates information about the woven structure or her own handwritten notes with her ideas about the piece right into the weaving. Often these pieces are jacquard woven on her TC1 loom. But Bhakti is a master of weave structure and she weaves many things on an 8-shaft Macomber. She understands weave structures in a way few others do.
The piece below is Rift 3, a weft-backed jacquard weaving, 29.5 x 26 inches. The curator’s information for this show says, “Ziek scanned her handwritten studio notes, including some crossed out mistakes, and programmed her jacquard loom to translate her swooping penstrokes into the gridded and layered language of weaving.”
Bhakti Ziek, Rift 3, 29.5 x 26 inches. Photo courtesy of Bhakti Ziek.
Bhakti Ziek, Rift 3, 29.5 x 26 inches, handwoven weft-backed jacquard weaving as seen in A Tenuous Thread
Bhakti Ziek, Rift 3 (detail), photo courtesy of Bhakti Ziek
Abstract
Bhakti Ziek, Deep, handwoven weft-backed jacquard, 41.5 x 26.5 inches
Much of Bhakti’s work is quite abstract though if you ask, there is usually a narrative of some sort behind the subject matter. And often these pieces that seem abstract are not so abstract once that story comes forth. For example the piece in the show, Florence Cross-Sections, seems completely abstract at first glance. Then Bhakti starts to tell you a story and you see that there is both a map of Florence and a diagram of weave structures in the piece.
Another abstract piece in the show, Deep, is pictured here. I have not heard the story of this weaving yet as we ran out of time, but I’m looking forward to the narrative I know is there somewhere.
The birds
The most recent pieces in the show are two golden bird-themed works. This snapshot in no way does these gorgeous pieces justice. They’re woven partly in gold and the backs are as stunning as the fronts. How do I know? Bhakti lifted them up to show us. I love these bird pieces and will go back to visit this show again before it closes in part to spend more time with them.
Bhakti Ziek, Camouflage, handwoven-damask jacquard, 34 x 27 inches and Eclipse, handwoven damask and weft-backed jacquard, 29.5 x 27 inches.
Lineage
You see, weaving is magic. Cloth is part of every person on the planet’s life. Cloth is often made by weaving and the number of structures possible, the ways that the warp and weft interact to create that cloth, are not endless, but there is a vast number of them. Bhakti is someone who understands the ways cloth can be made in a way that seems to be an innate part of her being.
Bhakti is one of the most generous and gifted teachers I’ve ever met. She has had hundreds of students in her career and five of them have work in this show. I have not had the pleasure of sitting in Bhakti’s classroom, but I’ve visited a class while she was teaching and I’ve benefited from listening to her talk about her work this week, in private conversations, and as she contributed to a module in the Design Solutions for the Artist/Weaver course I made. She is interested in students understanding structure and from there following their ideas in a way that is supported by that structure. She so clearly demonstrates these priorities in her own work alongside the use of story telling.
Bhakti as a person is a story teller. Whether she is talking about colleagues from Cranbrook, working for Jack Lenor Larsen, or meeting Lenore Tawney, she has so many fiber experiences that support her work and teaching. She spent five years in her youth living in Guatemala and can weave on anything from a backstrap loom to a massive computer driven jacquard loom. She is an artist who knows how the pieces fit together.
Bhakti in the foreground talking to our group about the pieces that anchor the end of the show in the mezannine. The works on the far wall are by her students.
I will forever be grateful for Bhakti’s generous gifting of knowledge to me and all the other weavers out there. Just as she follows the tenuous thread of her work as she creates every day, she supports fellow weavers and students from her vast storehouse of stories, resources, and understanding of this form of artistic expression. Bhakti often talks about the lineage of weaving and how she wants to honor that passing on of knowledge from people who taught her. For me, this show and Bhakti’s presence in the weaving world in general is a testament to the importance of that lineage. She is a keystone herself for so many artists. This show is a wonderful walk through her creative mind and I highly recommend spending some time with it if you can get to Santa Fe.
The show and weaving demonstrations
Bhakti herself is demonstrating on this Macomber loom in the gallery every Thursday and Saturday for the run of the show. The show closes on April 26, 2024 and I hear there will be a closing reception, so if you missed the February opening, you can go to the closing!
The image below is a collection of samples Bhakti has woven over the years. She calls them her gems. They are also for sale along with another set in the gallery shop so you can take home a very affordable example of her work, though I recommend considering a purchase of one of her large finished pieces. I can’t think of a better inspiration to live with every day than a piece of her work. I am so grateful to have one of her smaller pieces in my studio to remind me of the lineage of weaving and so Bhakti can whisper in my ear, “keep going!”
Bhakti Ziek’s demonstration loom and sample wall at Form and Concept for the show, A Tenuous Thread.
“I didn’t intend to become a weaver: It began as a tenuous thread, but it became my lifeline.”
Please visit Bhakti’s website here: https://www.bhaktiziek.com/. I recommend watching a video on the Stardust page of her website (top center image is a video). This piece was a huge commission she did for Princeton University and the video also shows a bit of her process.
She currently has work for sale, so now is the time to brighten your space with an incredible story. Her home and studio are in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She continues to teach from her studio if you would like to be part of her lineage yourself.
*As a concrete example, you can get her Woven Pixel book for free on handweaving.net. She wrote it with Alice Schlein.