"The #YearOfKnots gives me many rich things. It's a daily ritual that allows me to quickly access the blissful state of flow that had previously been so elusive to me. It's my art school, where I learn the elemental building blocks of art: line, form, shape, space, texture, and color. It's a history lesson, where I learn 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. 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." Windy Chien
