We go in to large, open rooms filled with Rachel’s work on all the walls, on tables, on beds.
"I work in this house," she tells me, “everywhere in this house.”
"So what I do, I work a little bit here, and a little there, I use the whole house that way."
"I like to use non-traditional materials…things I find, things people have given me…"
Rachel showed me Fragile Peace. Its lovely white streamers and ribbons waved and fluttered as she breathed, indeed giving a feeling of delicacy and fragility.
Rachel’s work feels so deeply personal. It seems to speak of her own suffering, and much of that seems to be pain for the world.
"I feel like I’ve been in a fog for three years, what with my sister’s illness and death, the state of the oceans, politics, the world…and I know I’m not alone. We are all at sixes and sevens, but we must find a creative response."
Rachel has titled this piece as a sort of wish. "Of course, you can’t mend ice. It’s melting, and you can’t control it, can’t stop it. Huge pieces of ice are falling, and our environment is disintegrating, and it breaks my heart."