Rachel Snack

Name: Rachel Snack

Studio location: Philadelphia, PA

Website / social links: rachelsnack.com, @rachelsnack

Loom type or tool preference: Floor loom - Macomber or Norwood

Years weaving: 9

Fiber inclination: Cotton, linen and hand-spun ramie

Current favorite weaving book: Frances L. Goodrich's Brown Book of Weaving Drafts by Barbara Miller and Deb Schillo

 

 

1. How did you discover weaving and was what your greatest resource as a beginner?

Land and the connection I have with ‘place’ is what drew me into the practice of weaving. Employing the body as a receptacle to create, through movement and utility, strengthened my link to craft heirloom and sacred space. It is in these moments that I feel most at home: intuitively creating at the loom, unconsciously drawing from my surroundings and in motion, yet in place. Through the senses at the loom the body enters into an ethereal landscape, as body and cloth become one – a whole, in parts, and by the matrix of the woven grid.

I started weaving while obtaining my undergraduate degree at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the department of Fiber & Material Studies. I began my education by painting and making ceramics; however, when I later enrolled in an introduction to textiles class, there was a kinship I felt the first time I attempted to weave cloth. I saw weaving as a tangible way to form identity – I embodied the loom. 

My greatest resource was my weaving instructors and peers at SAIC.

2. How do you define your practice – do you consider yourself an artist / craftsperson / weaver / designer / general creative or a combination of those? Is this definition important to you?

I am a weaver and textile artist. Although there is an articulated crux between art and design, the textiles I create with a functional aspect are grounded in a conceptual foundation. This allows me to embrace a fluidity of making within in my practice.

3. Describe your first experience with weaving.

The first loom I ever wove on was a 4-harness table top loom, which meant I had yet to be introduced to foot treadling. I was tasked to create a small sample and instead sat at the loom for several hours, embracing the way my body and the loom worked together in motion. The studio cleared, the city quieted, and I continued to weave.

4. What is your creative process, from the initial idea to the finished piece? Are there specific weave structures, looms, or fibers that are important to your process?

My practice is intuitive, responsive and anchored in textile history. I see the loom as an instrument, and as a maker I push the boundaries of this tool, finding new ways to approach textile making.

Woven structure formulates the grid, offering a basis and mode for development in areas reaching far past the loom. Subsequently, woven structure is also the interlacing of space, technically and conceptually, at the loom. Through methods of studying structure, I sketch and formulate a groundwork before responding instinctively while weaving.

 5. Does your work have a conceptual purpose or greater meaning? If so, do you center your making around these concepts?

The impermanence of bodily movement coexists with the transience quality of cloth, formulating a pattern of defining material, and material informing action. Anni Albers discusses a human ‘tactile sensibility’ in her book On Weaving, saying, “We touch things to assure ourselves of reality. We touch the objects of our love. We touch the things we form. Our tactile experiences are elemental”. Textiles remember, unintentionally and by design, due to the fragility and the natural transient quality of their existence. They record, through repetition and routine, preserving our identity in a non-verbal syntax. My textiles create a physical memory bearing witness to the hand of the artist, becoming material evidence of touch. They exist as a vessel between place and body, carrying sentiment and reaction.

 

6. What is your favorite part of the weaving process and why? What’s your least favorite?

I find value in the entire process, as my body in motion creates a non-verbal narrative that is cemented into every piece I make. I am most immersed when I am weaving for long periods of time in rhythm, and I enjoy projects that require this kind of production.  

I used to believe that making a mistake during the process that would cause an imperfection to reflect in the cloth was the most heart-breaking aspect. Now I celebrate these imperfections, preserving them as a marker of the human hand.

7. Do you sell your work or make a living from weaving? If so, what does that look like and how has that affected your studio practice?

I find it encouraging that a growing amount of people are taking an interest in understanding materiality, and therefore a new group of collectors have emerged that are buying textiles within the contemporary art market. This trickles down into everyday culture and shapes trends on social media and fashion, and I’ve found it’s become easier to make it as an independent artist or designer [within weaving]. I founded my textiles company, Weaver House, with the mission to create a tangible dialectal, to regain tactility and a hand-making consciousness into the home and onto the body. Sometimes selling my weavings to make a living does change my relationship to the practice, but I’m grateful I have the opportunity to support myself this way.

8. Where do you find inspiration?

I find inspiration in text and narrative, landscape, art history, contemporary painting and the historical context of craft.

9. What other creatives do you admire – weavers, artists, entrepreneurs – and why?

I admire the women who shaped the conversation of craft vs contemporary art: Lenore Tawney, Sheila Hicks, Anni Albers, Gunta Stölzl, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Elsi Giauque, Kay Sekimachi and Claire Zeisler. I also esteem the work of Virginia Davis, Ethel Stein, Louise Bourgeois, Elana Herzog, Ann Wilson and Gabriel Kuri. 

10. If you could no longer weave, what would you do instead?

If I had to stop weaving I would write full time.