Tien Chiu

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Time for a blog reboot

It’s been some years since I posted to this blog with any regularity. During most of this time, I’ve been completely consumed with the teaching business. (Making a career change is hard. Starting a business is very hard. Combining the two – all I can say is, it’s been an insane six years and I’m very grateful that I inherited my mother’s inexhaustible energy and iron will. Thanks, Ma!)

But I’ve also been torn about posting to the blog for other reasons.

For one thing, there has been very little fiber stuff going on that hasn’t been directly related to the teaching business. That’s partly because there hasn’t been much going on, period, that hasn’t been directly related to the business (working 60-70 hours/week leaves very little time for anything else). But it’s also because when you’re living, thinking, and breathing weaving for work all your waking hours, the last thing you want to do with the extra hour or so you have left is…more weaving.

So why not write about the business-related fiber stuff? Well, basically because I am fiercely committed to keeping this blog non-commercial. This blog has always been about my personal creative life and thoughts, and I feel strongly that this is incompatible with writing about the business side. It’s too easy to slide into marketing or teaching stuff and I emphatically feel that this blog should be about neither.

Having said that, there are still adventures and interesting thoughts to share, and I plan to start sharing them again, since I have a trifle more free time and mental bandwidth than I have had over the last five years. (I am through the HUGE learning curve on figuring out teaching, marketing, and running a business, and while launching the Handweaving Academy is a huge amount of work, I have a business partner and a small but intrepid team to help, so I don’t have to do everything by myself now. Thank goodness!) But I want to give fair warning: while I hope you’ll find it of interest, there will likely be less weaving content than there historically has been. More about powerlifting (a style of weightlifting, and my new passion), philosophy, good food, and (of course) cats.

Onward!

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“The Girl with the Phoenix Tattoo”

Silly people, naming the movie after a dragon tattoo….

Tien with a phoenix tattoo

You may recall that, back in September, I decided to get a tattoo to celebrate all the life changes over the last six years. It was going to be from a very talented South Korean artist, who would have been visiting the U.S. in November. I say “would have” because, alas, it didn’t pan out. He got stopped at the border and was abruptly deported back to South Korea (I don’t know why).

Cue panic for awhile, as I searched for an artist who could capture my idea. It really wasn’t easy. Tattoo art, like all art, comes in lots of different styles, but the only style I found that really captured the dynamic feel I wanted in my phoenix was Korean blackwork, which, not too surprisingly, is practiced primarily by tattoo artists in….Korea!

After briefly considering a trip to Korea (which shows you how obsessive and/or desperate I was), I stumbled upon an absolutely fantastic artist, Cache, who works at Black Serum Tattoo in San Francisco. Her work was exactly what I had been looking for – bold, clean, gorgeous, and with a sense of flowing movement that very few tattoo artists capture in her work.

Of course, great tattoo artists, like other great artists, book up fast. I wound up waiting almost three months for her to open up her appointment book for new tattoo bookings. When the booking form opened on her website, I leaped in instantly to put in my application – and it’s a good thing I’d written up my entire application in advance, because there were only 100 application slots available and they were gone in less than nine minutes. (She is good!)

I was delighted when she wrote me three days later to let me know that she’d accepted my tattoo application. I’d have to wait two more months, but I was going to get my tattoo!!

So I waited, patiently-impatiently, for May 31, which will henceforth be known as “Tattoo Day”.

Here’s how the process went.

First, she drew the design to custom-fit my arm, and sent the artwork to me the day before the appointment. I suggested some changes, and she did the edits.

On Tattoo Day, she printed out the design at various sizes, and taped the prints to my arm so I could decide what size I wanted her to make it:

Tien with tattoo image taped to her arm

The process could best be described as: “No, bigger.” “No, bigger.” “A bit bigger?” “No, even bigger than that.” “AHA! Yes, THAT BIG.”

Next step was to print it on paper in special purple stencil ink. It looked just like ink from purple ditto masters from grade school. Which I didn’t tell Cache about, because it would have dated me. (I’m pretty sure she was young enough that “ditto masters” would have earned a politely blank stare.)

A little transfer goo onto my arm, smooth the paper with the stencil ink onto my arm, wait a few seconds, and presto! Purple phoenix on my arm.

purple phoenix stencil ready for tattooing

Last chance to change your mind!

No second thoughts?

Okay! Get in the tattoo chair, and let’s get this party going!!

Half an hour later:

After half an hour of tattooing - the bottom half of the phoenix outlined.

Getting a tattoo on my outer arm, as it turned out, wasn’t terribly painful – about on par with having the dentist poking at your gums while cleaning your teeth – but it was still uncomfortable enough that I decided to take a break every half-hour or so. So here is the every half-hour “stop-motion video” of the tattoo being drawn.

After a bit over an hour of tattooing:

phoenix tattoo fully outlined in black
fully outlined in black

After almost two hours of tattoo time:

fully outlined and the bottom of the black portion filled in

After two and a half hours of tattooing:

black parts of phoenix mostly done

After three hours:

black parts of phoenix tattoo finished, red parts partially filled in

The artist at work:

Cache tattooing my arm
Cache working on my arm

And, after almost four hours of tattooing time (five and a half hours in the shop), the finished work:

finished phoenix tattoo

And the fully healed tattoo, three and a half weeks later:

To say I couldn’t be happier would be a massive understatement. I LOVE this tattoo. It symbolizes and sums up so many of the changes in my life over the last decade. I’ll wear it proudly for the rest of my life.

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Rites of passage

Not quite six years ago, I decided to walk away from my old life.

I realized that my twenty-year career managing software projects, while lucrative, was not fulfilling. Actually, let me be blunt: it was crushing my soul.

I was fortunate enough to have enough money to make a career transition, and to take some time to decide what to do next.

Of course, figuring out what to do next wasn’t going to be easy. As I wrote in my blog post “Chrysalis”, announcing my decision,

What to do next? That’s more complicated. I’d love to work in the craft arena, because that’s where my heart is. However, creative pursuits, particularly craftwork, are notoriously underpaid. And the San Francisco Bay Area is one of the most expensive places to live. That means I need to earn enough to pay my share of a Silicon Valley mortgage, since we have no intentions of moving. That makes it unlikely that I’ll be able to make my entire living from working in craft or craft publishing.

Well. You know what happened next. After six years of working my ass off, working harder than I’d ever done before in my life, I’ve arrived at a point where I can, in fact, pay my half of the mortgage, working as a weaving teacher. This is what I had dreamed I might be able to do, but not expected – how could anyone possibly expect that? – and, well, here I am.

And now Janet Dawson and I are on our way to fulfilling another of my dreams – founding an online weaving academy, where weavers who want to learn how to weave better, and to design their own work, can do just that, in a supportive community of teachers and weavers. I won’t go deep into our plans, but let’s just say that this is what I desperately wanted when I was a beginning weaver, and we are carefully designing and planning a school that we think will be a huge benefit for the weaving community, in addition to being a decades-long career for both of us.

At this point I feel like I have finally made the transition from software project manager to full-time weaving teacher/entrepreneur. The door is finally closed on the previous chapter of my life, and I’m starting a new one.

So it’s time for a rite of passage.

This one’s a curious one. I had never really thought about the prospect until a few months ago – it was always “something for other people”.

Then, sometime in June, I thought, “It’s time. I want a tattoo. A phoenix, rising from its ashes.”

The phoenix, of course, has been my unofficial personal symbol for quite some time. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve had to reinvent myself, either because of the bipolar disorder or because of some other disaster or sea change in my life. But after weaving a phoenix for my mother’s passing, and rebirthing myself out of the ashes of a previous career, I feel like it’s something that connects me to my personal power, and to the spirit of powerful change. There’s a lot of that going on in my life right now, so I want something permanent to mark that passage.

It’s not that different from the scarification that used to happen with manhood rites, except that in this case it’s something I’m doing for personal, not tribal, significance.

I’m going to put it on my right upper arm – I’m right-handed, so that’s a place that feels powerful to me, and it’s also a good place to put a tattoo to keep it protected from sun and chafing, which will help keep it from fading. I can also decide whether I want to show it or not.

The artist I’ve chosen to have do the tattoo is Tadi, a Korean artist who’ll be visiting San Francisco as a guest artist for three months. Here are two examples of his work on Instagram, which will give you an idea of his style:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CRL1bQBLiF7/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CUNRO8xJqF0/

And the inspirational photo I sent him, which is about the size and pose that I’m thinking of, is this one:

Tadi will be drawing a custom design for me, of course, and we’ll be finalizing the details a day or two before my tattoo appointment. That’s November 30 – a week and a bit after I finish teaching Gorgeous Gradients.

Frequently Asked Questions

Aren’t you worried you might regret this later?

Kiddo, there ain’t much I’ve done in the last six years that I might NOT have had serious reason to regret. Starting with walking away from a job that paid comfortably into six figures for a VERY uncertain and unproven financial life as a weaving teacher. Also, deciding to stay married when my wife came out as transgender three years ago, despite being a heterosexual woman who thought she’d married a man. Also, deciding to change from the solo weaving career to starting a weaving academy. Also, see my entire past history.

I’m not an irrational risk-taker, but the whole point of this tattoo is to celebrate the culmination of a high-risk move that, with a ton of very hard, very carefully thought-out work, has proved tremendously rewarding. There are reasons that I might decide against it, but concerns about future regrets aren’t one of them.

But tattoos fade. Aren’t you worried that it’s going to look ugly in 30 years?

Well, first, I’m 51. I’m not interested in winning beauty contests now (though I am tempted to enter powerlifting contests – I’d be third in the state of California for my age group if I did!), and 30 years from now, I’ll be 81 and (I hope) even less vain about my appearance.

Second, I did think things through, and did some research. Of all the tattoo colors, black fades the least. Fine lines, such as Tadi uses, do eventually fade away (we’re talking 15-20 years though), but they can also be retouched by another tattoo artist, so I’m not worried about that. The fine lines will also spread and fuzz out slightly, but since the lines are mostly used to create shading, again, not a big issue. Finally, how much abrasion, sun, wind, etc. the skin gets has a big effect on the longevity of the tattoo. So my choice of the upper arm is great – it’s a well protected area and doesn’t rub against clothing much.

And, if all else fails, black is also the most easily removed color for laser tattoo removal.

Aren’t tattoos just a flash-in-the-pan trendy thing?

According to Ipsos, 30% of Americans have at least one tattoo, so apparently I’m not particularly hip and trendy by getting one. (Sigh.)

What do the cats think of your getting a tattoo?

Hey babe, keep handing over those cat treats and you can do whatever the heck you want with the rest of your time!

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Cat-iversary!

Today is a day of celebration! Huge congratulations to Tigress and Fritz, who exactly eight years ago came home from their first successful hunt. And what a hunt it was! They “bagged” not just one, but TWO humans to adore, worship, and serve them for the rest of their lives.

Here are the mighty hunters the evening they arrived:

Fritz and Tigress as kittens

And here they are a few days ago, snuggled up together:

Fritz and Tigress snuggling
Snuggly cats!

Fritz still loves his belly rubs:

Fritz flopped over demanding a belly rub
Belly rubs are therapeutic!

And Tigress still likes to sleep at the top of shelves. (It’s nice to have friends in high places!)

She’s very Zen, so perhaps she’s engaged in sectarian dialogue with HH the Dalai Lama while she naps?

Tigress sleeping on a shelf above a postcard of the Dalai Lama
Tigress the Zen kitty

As a spiritual master, Tigress would be the first to tell you that if you love something, you must let it go free. If you don’t, how could you chase and kill it again???

Tigress hunting a feather toy
Tigress hunting

Yes, it’s been eight wonderful years. Eight years of being sat on, meowed at, mercilessly ordered to hand out the cat treats, and subjected to arbitrary demands from a tyrannical and utterly marvelous pair of cats. Here’s to many more years of “supervision” from our wonderful cats, Fritz and Tigress!

Fritz and Tigress providing supervision for some quill-winding

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Philosophical musings

Two or three more hours of threading have moved me along to here in the tying-on:

warp with about three inches of yarns tied on
Progress on “Fire” warp

I’ve finished tying on about three inches of the 29″ wide warp, so I’m about 10% done. At 2,640 threads, that means I’ve got 264 threads tied on, or about 45 seconds per thread. That’s awfully slow, but I’m taking my time, pulling each thread through the original cross to make sure I’ve got the right thread before taking another thread. I’m alternating between orange threads and black threads, and I’ve lost count of the times I’ve mistakenly grabbed an orange thread when I should have grabbed a black one! I guess I naturally gravitate towards orange. 🙂

Also, I’m in a wrist brace, battling tendinitis in my right arm. It’s getting better since I switched to a left-handed trackball, but it does make tying knots more awkward. So it will likely take me 30+ hours to tie on this warp, and another 5 hours or so to pull through and sley the reed. (I had to take the warp out of the reed while swapping out loom guts.) And then, of course, I’ll have to weave several inches and spend a few hours debugging everything before I can weave anything. Patience, grasshopper!

Then, of course, there is the question of WHAT to weave. And that gets me to the philosophical question.

One of the things I want to do in my work is explore the limits of jacquard weaving. When I see jacquard weaving in exhibits, I see a lot of work that is basically using the loom as a low-resolution printer: creating imagery in cloth, using fairly simple structures. While there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with doing that, it barely scratches the surface of what is possible with such a powerful tool. I feel that if I’m going to own a loom that can do virtually anything, I should explore all the “anything” that it can do. (Kind of like owning a Ferrari – if all you’re going to do is commute to work on surface streets, why did you spend all that money on a car that can go from 0 to 60 in two seconds flat?)

Of course this is a logical fallacy. Just because you own a tool doesn’t mean you have to be “owned” by the tool, creatively speaking – even if you have a fancy hammer, everything doesn’t have to be a nail. But beyond the guilt engendered by having an expensive tool that you aren’t using to its full potential, I also feel drawn to explore the intriguing and complex technical spaces opened up by having a jacquard loom.

For example: most woven shibori is done with relatively simple, repeating patterning because of the limitations of shaft looms. What happens when you do more complex patterning? Imagery? Double weave with one layer drawn up and the other left loose? Combine that with imagery in the drawn-up layer? Double weave with different drawn-up patterns in each layer?

Any of these would be difficult to do with a shaft loom, but can be woven with a jacquard loom. (Admittedly, it may involve significant contortions in setting up the design.)

From an artistic standpoint, the question is whether all that technical exploration is really necessary to art. And, of course, it isn’t. Art is about what you are saying, not how you got there. Which is probably why most art exhibits feature the low-resolution printer type of jacquard weaving. The artist was focusing on message, not exploring technique. Which is fine, if your purpose is art.

I’m not so convinced that my purpose is art. As I said on my recent Textiles and Tea interview with the Handweavers Guild of America, I think of myself as a researcher. I seek to explore, to learn things, then I publish and teach what I’ve learned. The art is important to me, but it’s more a part of the exploration and research than an end in itself. And that’s just fine.

It’s taken me a long time to get to this realization, but I’m good with it.

I’m still deciding what to explore with the Fire warp. Fortunately, with 35 hours of physical work to go before I can weave anything, I’ve got plenty of time to think about it. I’ve also got parts arriving late this week for Grace, which will enable me to put on the Color Gradients sample warp. So I’ve got plenty of time to decide what I want to explore.