FILIZ SOYAK, artist

Excited to announce I am showing new fiber works in ‘Soft Animals’, an exhibit of artworks by women responding to the changes we navigate internally and externally in parenthood. This show is in participation with the fifth edition of Upstate Art Weekend, July 18-21, 2024! Over 140 cultural organizations will participate in this year’s edition, celebrating art and culture in 10 counties in the Catskill Mountain and Hudson Valley. for more information and regular programming updates.
•
Soft Animals

Soft Animals explores the dynamic journey of artists as they navigate the complexities of parenthood. Inspired by Mary Oliver‘s poem Wild Geese, the exhibit delves into the rediscovery of a practice amidst one’s caregiving responsibilities.

How does experience transform one’s creative output? It now functions as an escape, timekeeper, meditation, grieving process, even liberation.

Ultimately, this show imagines the creative process as emerging from a cocoon - unfurling into new shapes. As parenting breaks you open and strips you bare, how do you answer Oliver’s call to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves?

Featuring works by:
Jamie Goldenberg – Great Barrington, MA
Tara Hogan – Fayetteville, NY

Meg Musgrove - Millerton, NY

Erica Recto – Millerton, NYart
Jessica Jane Russell - Sharon, CT

Filiz Soyak - Hudson, NY
Katie Westmoreland - New York, NY

On view from 7/18-8/31, 2024
Opening reception Friday 7/19 5-8pm
At Bes
50 Main Street
Millerton, NY

🤍🕊🤍
Om Shaanti Shaanti Shaanti

Ebb and flow
Folds and wrinkles
Soft and warm
Shape and movement
Grounded and fluid
Delicate and strong
Passionate and sensitive
Steady and adaptive
…
Motherhood series
…

Sometimes ideas come so fast and furious I think ‘how can I achieve them all because they all need to be realized now!’ Then a few days later I hesitate here and there and have to sit with something for a while before I know what to do with it. The creative process, intuition, the cycle of being human, the cycle of being a woman…there is always an ebb and flow to life. I know that now. And am not worried or frustrated when the flow retreats. Like the ocean tides this is the pulse of being human. I know that the ebb is the pause and space needed before flow and life force once again arrives. Trust and move with it or sit with it and let it wash over you.
•
Today is an ebb day…I’m sitting with several projects and ideas in various stages of creation and completion and just letting them be, until the flow returns again.

Why am I drawn to fiber and repetition? It mirrors my domestic role in this season of my life.
•
I spent the morning touching hundreds of textiles. Not in my studio but in my house. Hanging towels, making beds, smoothing out blankets, folding laundry, sorting clothes, putting them in piles to mend, donate, or be handed down, picking things up off the floor, sweeping and cleaning and wiping counters with old rags, straightening rugs. The list goes on.
•
My role as a mother is filled with repetition that can feel redundant….but oh how vital this role is. I’m approaching it as ceremony. Because what I do is sacred to me. We weave the fiber of our families. We hold and mend structures for our children so they can grow and evolve with freedom and safety and can feel steady when they need support. We braid hair and tradition into the seasons to create our own family memories. We are the bearers of rituals and keepers of relics.
•
And so I mark the time - something that is so intangible, to try and make it tangible. Time which is so fleeting, fast and slow, slippery like water through my fingers, in an attempt to capture it and save it like water in a bottle.

Why am I drawn to fiber and repetition? It mirrors my domestic role in this season of my life.
•
I spent the morning touching hundreds of textiles. Not in my studio but in my house. Hanging towels, making beds, smoothing out blankets, folding laundry, sorting clothes, putting them in piles to mend, donate, or be handed down, picking things up off the floor, sweeping and cleaning and wiping counters with old rags, straightening rugs. The list goes on.
•
My role as a mother is filled with repetition that can feel redundant….but oh how vital this role is. I’m approaching it as ceremony. Because what I do is sacred to me. Women weave the fiber of our families. We hold and mend structures for our children so they can grow and evolve with freedom and safety and can feel steady when they need support. We braid hair and tradition into the seasons to create our own family memories. We are the bearers of rituals and keepers of relics.
•
And so I mark the time - something that is so intangible, to try and make it tangible. Time which is so fleeting, fast and slow, slippery like water through my fingers, in an attempt to capture it and save it like water in a bottle.

Re-familiarizing myself with works in various stages of progress that I began over the last 18 months since my studio was completed. Never short of ideas - intuitively moving through quiet moments with my self.
•
Making my work is a meditation, a space where I’m fully present, a reprieve from the laundry list of to do’s and familiar anxieties. I feel a peace and ground and stillness inside that is comforting no matter what is happening outside. It’s a place that’s fully mine. In some ways it can also feel as if I’m an archeologist arriving to uncover what my self has to say. And when I listen, I learn…
•
For much of 2022 I was struggling against a wave of deep depression and consumed with debilitating anxiety some days - postpartum hormone induced. But…as women, as mothers, the amount of transformation we navigate over our lifetimes as well as in these short period of times of pregnancy, birth and postpartum…is profound. I mean…how can one be expected to coast through without needing to pause and look inside? It’s a lot to process and navigate in a new body while sustaining another body. So I took the time to understand that the wave 🌊 had a purpose.
•
I have been finding my way…not back to where I was, but forward into my new self. It’s a process. It’s been a lot like finding your way through the dark…slowly, not in a straight line, feeling my way there. The practice I come back to is to quiet, get still, so I can hear and feel what all this had to tell me. Honoring my inner voice and intuition instead of all the external noise and expectations (of which there are so many, so many that do not serve us).
•
And while so much changed, I found I am still here. Familiar but different. Quietly waiting to be heard and honored by my self. Older, deeper, watery, soft, yet fiery at the same time…and very clear on one thing. The noise is always a distraction. Make the time to stand still. Look inside. The answers are all here.

Big yes. ✨
I’ve missed this knowing and sacred practice. It’s where I feel so connected I don’t have to think. No words no thoughts just a feeling of yes, no, hell YES!, or meh. This connection to intuition is grounding. And so encouraging. Because she’s always there. It’s only hidden or silenced by distractions - some external and some internal. This is why I need my creative practice as much as breathing, sleeping, meditating. It reconnects me to myself and everything else. ✨💫

Studio was the first place I cleaned in detail when I came back from Sweden. Clean space = clean mind. Physically clearing the cobwebs from the corners and walls energetically dusted off the cobwebs within too. I prioritized this because 1) my creative practice and work is sacred work, and 2) as a vessel, this practice of clearing makes room for new energy to be received and flow in. I am the container.
•
…now the rest of my home…not quite the same 😅 and that’s something I have to work on (to not be frustrated by all the time) and let that go…prioritizing what is calling the loudest and nourishes the most.

Back in 🇺🇸 after the summer in Sweden 🇸🇪 with family. Stepping back into a routine feels nice and also foreign. Kids are now starting school, the days are more structures, and I’m going to have time to work again.
•
Spending time with family and every day outside was so nourishing. Sweden in the summer is so special. So light and bright ☀️, green, fresh, and beautiful. Fika and bullar, lots of 🐟, 🦐, 🍷, 🌊, 🚤 , and 🌲 🌲 🌲 . Loose and fluid days that follow a natural rhythm instead of schedule, just as summer days should be. (Though anyone traveling with kids knows that it’s a very different dynamic😅!)
•
Now since being back home and getting back into a rhythm I’m thinking about how to carry the elements of the summer that brought me joy and peace and a sense of well being into my life for the rest of the year.
•
Is there something you did over the summer that you want to weave in throughout the coming year? A ritual, a sensation or element, an activity, a feeling? Mine is to carry the freedom and openness that I feel from being by the sea and forests and a move at a pace that feels intuitive.
•
And of course! ☕️ 🥐

Simple natural materials just feel so good to work with. Nothing to jazz up just celebrating what is closest to its natural form texture and color.

Textures for new works.

I read an astrological report for myself recently that made me pause… It read that one of the placements specific in my birth chart shows that I’m probably a weaver of sorts, linking and stitching elements together. Creating work to make sense of intangible emotions and spiritual senses… Trying to put into form what is formless. 💫 🌊 🌙

More explorations with soft 3 dimensional forms.

I haven’t been able to work in my studio much over the past 2 months. An hour here and a bit there. This piece has been sitting on the floor for over a month. Before I cut it up one day without a plan, the roll of fabric sat there waiting to be worked with. This is how I create now. I walk past materials in various states and places throughout my home, and when I have a moment, a pause - not just in time but also an internal pause and space, when something calls out to me, I change it’s form. Maybe in just one small way, for 5 minutes, or maybe changing it entirely and getting engrossed in it for a longer period. But during these early years of mothering studio time has been reshaped as moments of creating and processing in the in-between. Kind of like self care or reading books (!!) or socializing or relaxing (!!) and other things that tend to happen in the periphery of the essential. They get fit into the nooks and crannies of these busy and active days. But maybe it’s better this way…that projects are scattered throughout the spaces I live in showing various states of being reminding me that they’re growing…slowly but surely, like all of us. This will now likely sit here for another month or two…until it’s ready to grow.

Weaving my own burlap…experiments and samples for larger projects.

Working on some new three dimensional form ideas.

After having my second baby, the past year has really just been about rediscovering and returning to my self. Physically but also emotionally and mentally. It’s a journey through an altered state of consciousness in a physically demanding season. My work has been a sacred practice of creating to process, explore and excavate the depth that the intense initiation of motherhood takes me through. This process takes time, can’t be rushed, and is filled with lessons and wisdom. And while filled with so much that feels blurry and confusing and time feels like water, it beckons me to do what is necessary. Honor my limited energy, my needs, and find that quiet and stillness amongst the quickness of time to hear that inner voice we. And when I can hear her I feel at peace.

Chestnut Moon
Kurimayū 🌙
124” long x 15.5” wide
handwoven chestnut silk, silk and cotton thread, oak, walnut ink
•••
collaborative piece with -en-ny handwoven chestnut silk by generationally trained fiber artists and kimono weavers in Japan

“Chestnut Moon” / Kurimayū 🌙
•••
124” long x 15.5” wide
handwoven chestnut silk, silk and cotton thread, walnut ink, oak wood
custom collaborative piece created for silk fiber woven by legendary kimono makers in Japan
•••
styled by
photography by
•••
It was an honor to create this piece and work with such a beautiful piece of fiber. Give to see the beautiful handcrafted work by generationally trained fiber artists in Japan. 🧵 More pics to follow.

The Sun Always Rises I
2020
Original sumi ink and gold leaf painting on paper
8" x 8"
•
I’m so honored to include a new small painting - one to bring hope for our times - in this year’s Yuletide Auction for our local Hawthorne Valley School. Bid on it to get an original piece of art (comes in a 9” x 9” birch frame!) while also raising money for our wonderful school using link in bio or going to .silentauction (you don’t have to be local - shipping available!). Auction ends Nov 30!
•
About The Auction:
In lieu of our annual in-person Yuletide Fair, we are presenting a silent auction featuring local, artisanal and class-made auction items.
•
About Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School:
The Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School provides education to a diverse student population in a setting that values time outside, accessing intellect through the Arts and multisensory approaches. We are utilizing this online auction software to help fundraise for our school which provides over 50% of our students with tuition assistance and reduced lunch and snack.
•
*Last image shows more works in this series that’ll be on my website this week. Make lovely gifts at an affordable price. DM to reserve one.✨
•
@ Hudson, New York

15 breaths...15 moments
•
detail of
Breath Meditation VI
(168 breaths)
sumi ink on paper
36” x 90”
•
For sale. DM for inquiry.
•
•
•
•
•
•
@ BREATHE

Breath Mountain III: Commune
cotton thread and burlap
49” x 82”
•
Today & tomorrow are the last days to see my exhibit Breath Monuments in Hudson, NY.
•
Breath by breath, moment by moment, we have mountains to climb in our evolution. The permeability of the fiber evokes a softness and life to a mountain while the hundreds of delicate marks come together to embody a symbol of strength and time.
•
•
•

Breath Mountain II: Rise
cotton thread and burlap
49” x 80”
•
Today & tomorrow are the last days to see my exhibit Breath Monuments in Hudson, NY.
•
The works in Breath Monuments are “temples to the breath and air, in a time when we are faced with crises of profound proportions: climate, environment, health, disconnection, anxiety, and stress. I’m interested in bringing visibility to something so vital to all life.”
•
•
•
•

Breath Mountain I:
Between Earth and Sky
cotton thread and burlap
49” x 72”
•
Today & tomorrow are the last days to see my exhibit Breath Monuments in Hudson, NY.
•
Breath Mountain is a series of pieces made with hundreds of cotton stitches and marks on burlap created in communion with the breath. “I am enthralled by mountains - earth's natural monuments. Holy, majestic, powerful, and dangerous or hostile if attempting to climb – mountains are a sacred earth that climb into the sky accessing the divine and higher realms. The mountain symbol feels potent, representing collective challenges we are facing.”
•
•
•
•

Excited to share a collaboration with !✨✨✨
•
Join me on November 1 at 1pm at Olana for a meditative walk and Q&A around my work, process, and to learn more about the project . Spots are limited so please sign up for tickets using the link in my bio! 🙏🏽💛
•
(swipe for program details)
•
•
•
•
@ Olana Historic Site

Only two more weekends left to see my work !! Last day of Breath Monuments is Sunday 11/1. Reserve a time to visit the exhibit over Fridays thru Sundays (tickets are free).

Breath Meditation VI (168 breaths)
sumi ink on paper
36” x 90”
•
168 moments
•
On view now in my exhibit Breath Monuments till November 1. Head over to to reserve a time - open Fri-Sun with timed ticketing.💫
•
•
•
•
•
•

Repost from
•
On view for only two more weeks are 's Breath Monuments and 's EPHIPHANY: It's The Cracks That Let The Light In. Part of what makes Breath Monuments so moving is the sound piece, Breath Waves, a collaboration between Soyak and Patrick Hameon . Deep-diving into the sound of the breath, the piece aims to provide a sense of peace and solace in a time of stress and unrest. So we invite you to have a seat on a cushion, breathe, find peace and listen to the sound piece Breath Waves this weekend or next!