We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Rachael Mayer. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Rachael below.

Rachael, appreciate you joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I feel lucky and privileged to count myself as a fiber artist. My craft very much feels as though I have inherited it from a long line of women. Sewing, crocheting, and quilting were all modes of caring for the women before me – my mom made every Halloween costume when we were growing up, my great-grandmothers quilted and crocheted. I have blankets, yarn-adorned heirlooms, and stitching paraphernalia like thimbles, measuring tapes, needles and thread that have stories attached to them in their wear and use.

My mom taught me how to sew at a young age. I was sick with the flu and bored of just watching TV. She gave me some cotton, an embroidery hoop, floss, and a needle and put me to work. My mom is an incredible crafter – she is meticulous and creative in her quilts. Every color and fabric choice is made with intention. I am not nearly so detail-oriented and my quilting points hardy ever match perfectly, but my family has instilled a deep love of textiles and fiber.

For years in between childhood and young adulthood, I stepped away from the fiber arts. Growing up, creative pursuits were appreciated as hobbies but weren’t seen as possible professions. I think a lot of this has to do with how we view textiles and fiber-related crafts. My ancestors would have never described themselves as creatives or as artists – they made a blanket because it was cold or stitched a dress because they needed something to wear. Yet I look at these objects and think about all the choices they made – whether about color, texture, or design – and can’t help but think that they are each works of art.

I rediscovered fiber when I was feeling lost in my 20s. I began stitching and embellishing photographs and coming back to this world of texture and color felt a lot like coming home to myself. It was then that I decided to go all in. I completed a MFA program, interned at craft schools, and became involved in community-based arts. Every new skill I learn, I’ve learned from the generosity of other contemporary artists or from technique books that date back decades. Fiber and textile arts are ancient. If we go back far enough in our family trees, every single one of us is related to a fiber artist. Fiber art remains relevant because while its foundations are rooted in generations of knowledge, it is deeply embedded in our everyday, contemporary lives – it complements a deeply human experience.

Rachael, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am very obsessed with color. However, my art career started out with a lot of whites, grays, and muted tones. When I went to school for fiber, it felt a little like I needed to prove myself to those around me – both in academics and outside of them. Fiber and textile art was seen as a bit kitschy and was something you learned in home economics but very rarely ventured into the art world. I felt pressure to conform to more sophisticated color palettes. I graduated in 2018 and even in such a short time, appreciation for fiber art has exploded in such an encouraging way.

During the height of the pandemic, it felt silly to plan for such turbulent futures and every past plan I had seemed irrelevant. I took all my white yarn and started dyeing it in my bathtub (when you don’t have a studio hooked up to water and live in a cold climate, your bathroom becomes part of your studio space, too). I was struck by all the color that was starting to surround me and found that the right color combinations are magic. Thus started my deep love of color and pattern.

My art practice is varied – I create large installations for galleries and clients while also creating intimate, functional and decorative pieces for individuals and their homes. Regardless of the size and intent, my hope is that all will delight in the interplay of texture and color in my work.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

As artists, we’re used to rejections. I’ve had my fair share but the one that broke my heart was in 2021. I was up for a huge commission, a life-changing opportunity, and I lost out on it. We were still learning about COVID-19, how it transferred and how long it stayed on surfaces. The client was worried about cleaning fiber work in a highly-trafficked area in the time of a pandemic.

I had to pivot. I knew I needed to make money fast. I started doing art fairs, making smaller work, and shifting my focus. There is an incredible community of makers in the Pacific Northwest. I found that making art to sell in these spaces gifted me with new friends and new opportunities. I started using these works of art to be explicit in my views, commentary, and the world that I wanted to see more of. I began using my platform for body positivity, mental health, and human rights. Living in conservative Idaho, it can seem rather helpless when it comes to creating spaces for everyone to feel safe regardless of their identity but I’ve found that the conversations I have with the public when I’m displaying my work at fairs, in stores, or on social media to be incredibly affirming and hopeful. That’s not to say that there aren’t critics or trolls but thankfully they’re often drowned out by kinder folks.

In art school, there were some fellow students who really looked down on artists who created for craft fairs, wholesalers, or to sell online. It didn’t feel like “capital A” art. It took a while for me to unlearn these internalized thoughts and the work I create feels accessible, innovative, and relevant to my contemporaries. In the past year or so, I’ve started making larger, more conceptual pieces that might end up fitting better in a gallery setting. Interestingly, I’ve found that my craft fair work has heavily influenced my gallery work so much so that it’s starting to look like one continuous body rather than two disparate pieces of my artistic identity. I can’t wait to explore this more.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

My graduate school advisor, Naomi S. Velasquez, recommended a book to me that has fundamentally shaped my creative practice. “Living and Sustaining a Creative Life: Essays by 40 Working Artists,” edited by Sharon Louden showcases the breadth and depth of how creatives make their practices work within their everyday lives. It proved to me that there is no one right way to live creatively and that practices change and evolve. It is so affirming to see the myriad of ways artists make work while making things work.

I also became part of the Craft & Practice series by Lise Silva Gomes (link: https://www.lisesilva.com/craft-practice). Lise brought together a bunch of different creative entrepreneurs who all shared their expertise on boundary setting, the nitty gritty of selling online, creating a better relationship with your finances, and finding inspiration. It was through this series that I discovered that I actually don’t want to make a full-time living off of my artwork. For me, that’s too much pressure to place on my creativity. It’s really important to me that I’m able to step away and get inspired by other areas of my life. My other job is in marketing and communications for an international fiber arts organization, the Surface Design Association (link: https://surfacedesign.org/). I get to talk with other artists, academics, creatives, curators, and designers from around the world who have an appreciation and love of textiles.

I think the craft fields are unique in that we’re always willing to share ideas, techniques, and resources with our fellow creatives. It reminds me of quilt circles and how the entire community would gather to stitch on fabric to turn a big job into a celebration. All of these connections we make as artists have the opportunity to further build upon creative foundations for not only us but for everyone else too.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.rachaelmayerart.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rachaelmayerart
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rachaelmayerart
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachael-mayer/