RUBY PRESS CASE STUDY
A Fine Artist’s Rise From a Daily Practice to National Recognition
Client: Windy Chien
Location: San Francisco, CA
Engagement window: 2016 – 2021 (with continued placements through 2023)
Overview
Windy Chien — the San Francisco artist known for elevating the knot into fine art — began working with Ruby Press in 2016, midway through The Year of Knots, her self-directed project of learning and tying one new knot every day for a full year. Chien had left a career at Apple to start making art at age 48, and had little runway to make the practice sustainable in one of the most expensive cities in the country. Over the engagement that followed, Ruby Press turned a deeply personal creative discipline into a thriving art career: more than 320 placements and 513 million cumulative media impressions, a literary agent and book deal with Abrams, and numerous speaking engagements — the foundation for a studio practice that now carries a six-month waiting list.
The Challenge
As a self-taught artist just beginning to claim the title, Chien’s path to a sustainable career faced a distinct set of obstacles:
• Starting late, with no time to waste: Chien began making art at 48 and needed her practice to become financially sustainable quickly, in San Francisco — one of the most expensive cities in America for an artist to build a career.
• A personal project, not yet a business: The Year of Knots began as a daily creative discipline, not a marketing campaign — it needed to be translated into a story compelling enough to reach collectors, press, and the design world.
• Reaching beyond craft and niche audiences: Knot-tying and fiber art risked being covered only by niche craft outlets; the work needed to reach the mainstream, design-forward audiences who would actually acquire it and commission it.
• Finding the language for the work: Chien wasn’t yet comfortable calling herself an artist. Before the story could be told publicly, she needed a thought partner to help her articulate what the work was and why it mattered.
Strategy
• Story before pitch: Ruby Press worked with Chien as a thought partner first, helping her articulate the meaning behind The Year of Knots before shaping it into a media narrative — clarity that shaped both the press strategy and Chien’s own sense of direction.
• A regional anchor to build local credibility: A Style section cover story in the San Francisco Chronicle, paired with a sustained relationship with Sunset Magazine, rooted Chien in mainstream regional coverage rather than niche craft press.
• Mainstream crossover over niche fine-art press: Placing Chien in Martha Stewart Living within the first year — a mass-market lifestyle title rather than a fine-art publication — put the work in front of the broad, aspirational audience most likely to become collectors and clients.
• Design and trade crossover: Martha Stewart Living coverage caught the attention of Interior Design Magazine’s editor-in-chief, opening a relationship that led to a speaking engagement at the magazine’s Hospitality Giants summit, recurring features, and the architect and designer relationships that drive Chien’s commission pipeline today.
• Always-on visibility: Recurring inclusion in gift guides, home tours, and “current obsessions” roundups across Domino, Remodelista, Apartment 34, Sunset, and 7x7 kept Chien’s work in front of design-minded audiences between milestone moments.
• National broadcast amplification: Targeted broadcast outreach placed Chien’s story on two separate ABC segments, syndicated across a combined 15 network-affiliate markets nationwide.
• A long-lead pipeline into publishing: Press coverage timed to the completion of The Year of Knots in late 2016 put the project in front of book publishers directly, leading to a literary agent, a book auction, and a deal with Abrams.
• Reopening the story through collaboration: Partnerships — including a shoe collaboration with Bryr and, years later, a fine jewelry collaboration with Cast — gave Ruby Press fresh hooks to reintroduce Chien’s story to new audiences long after the initial news cycle.
Results by the Numbers
Cumulative media reach
513M+ impressions (2016–2021 engagement)
Total placements secured
320+ across print, digital, broadcast, and social
Largest single placement
SFGate — 24M+ reach (“14 Fantastic Ideas for Finished Attics,” Jan. 2017)
National broadcast syndication
2 ABC segments — 15 affiliate markets, 39M+ combined reach
Regional press anchor
Sunset Magazine — 21 placements, 20M+ combined reach (2016–2019)
National lifestyle recognition
Martha Stewart Living — 6 placements, 37M+ combined reach (2017–2020)
Career milestone
Literary agent signed; book deal with Abrams; The Year of Knots published 2019
Continued momentum
Forbes feature (2023) — 73M+ reach, two years after the engagement ended
Regional Foundation
The San Francisco Chronicle put Chien on the cover of its Style section in September 2016, establishing her as a mainstream regional story rather than a niche craft curiosity. The Chronicle and SFGate returned to her work repeatedly over the engagement — 10 placements totaling more than 56 million in combined reach — while a parallel relationship with Sunset Magazine generated 21 placements and more than 20 million in combined reach across features on Chien’s home, studio, and work.
National Lifestyle Breakthrough
When Ruby Press placed Chien in Martha Stewart Living’s American Made spotlight in September 2017, it was a deliberate bet that mainstream lifestyle press would outperform niche fine-art coverage — a bet that paid off. The relationship continued across six placements and more than 37 million in combined reach through 2020, keeping Chien in front of Martha Stewart’s broad, aspirational readership well beyond the initial feature.
Design & Trade Crossover
The Martha Stewart Living feature caught the attention of Cindy Allen, editor in chief of Interior Design Magazine, opening a relationship that ran to nine placements and more than 11 million in combined reach. It led directly to a speaking engagement at the magazine’s Hospitality Giants summit in 2017 and, in 2020, a live Instagram conversation with Allen on the state of the design industry — the kind of trade credibility that turns into architect and designer commissions.
National Broadcast Recognition
Targeted broadcast outreach placed the same in-depth feature, “Discover the Fascinating World of Knot Art,” on seven ABC-affiliate stations in December 2019, followed by a second national segment, “Asian Entrepreneurship in America,” syndicated across eight more ABC affiliates in May 2021. Together, the two broadcasts reached 15 media markets outside the Bay Area for a combined 39 million in reach — turning a San Francisco studio story into a coast-to-coast broadcast moment, twice.
The Book Deal
When Chien completed The Year of Knots at the end of 2016, the press coverage it generated caught the attention of book publishers directly — they found her through the coverage and pursued her. Chien signed with a literary agent, took the book to auction, and landed a deal with Abrams. The book’s release in September 2019 was met with a 56-placement, 40-million-reach coverage wave spanning Martha Stewart Living, Domino, My Modern Met, PureWow, and dozens of design-influencer placements — a launch window that confirms just how directly the media exposure Ruby Press built contributed to the book deal.
Continued Momentum
The relationships and press credibility Ruby Press built didn’t end when the formal engagement did. In 2023, a fine jewelry collaboration with Cast landed a feature in Forbes generating more than 73 million in reach on its own — part of a 27-placement, 75-million-reach moment for the collaboration overall — proof that the story Ruby Press built continues to open doors years later.
Takeaway
In five years, Ruby Press helped turn a self-taught artist’s yearlong personal project into a national media story, a book deal with Abrams, and a studio practice with a six-month waiting list. Chien now creates site-specific installations for institutions and brands — including suspended sculptures for the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C., a Knot Collection built for Dodo Pomellato’s flagship Milan Design Week window and more than 40 of its other stores, and, this year, a hand-built entry in SFMOMA’s first Soap Box Derby since the 1970s. What began as a question of whether the work could become sustainable has become a career defined by freedom: the ability to be selective about the work Chien takes on, and the collector and client base to sustain it.