Rachel Snack (BFA 2013) loves looms and vintage textiles. She discovered this affinity at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) when she enrolled in an Intro to Fiber class during her first semester as an undergraduate student. An erstwhile painter, Snack had planned on pursuing painting and art education as her areas of focus—until she started weaving.
This love for creating textiles inspired Snack to found her own business, Weaver House Co. As the creative director, Snack pursues her own designs and offers services for custom-made pieces, including collages, photographs, and woven installations. Her installations, or “Banner-scapes,” consist of hand-woven textiles of hand-dyed cloth, which have been displayed in locations ranging from national galleries to flagpoles on the roof of Chicago’s Lillstreet Art Center.
Snack’s designs are not based on sketches or drawings, but rather on her material choices and what she refers to as “instinctual design decisions.” In addition to her original creations, Snack conserves antique and vintage textiles that are sold on the company’s website (weaverhouse.com).
After earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts from SAIC in 2013, Snack worked as a conservator at the Textile Conservation Workshop in Salem, New York. For seven months in 2014 Snack was a Designer-in-Residence at Awamaki in Ollantaytambo, Peru.
According to an interview with Local Wolves magazine, these experiences, coupled with her education at SAIC, contributed to her entrepreneurial and artistic ambitions: “I quickly found that my biggest need was for freedom– creatively and physically. I purposely held onto one desire: I wanted to be at my loom every day.”
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