Episode 3: Rachel Marie Stark

Rachel Marie Stark is a craft-based fiber artist whose work is rooted in the transformation of found objects—weathered scraps of metal, industrial remnants, twisted tree branches, and stone fragments—into striking, symbolic installations. Her art often begins with the raw and ravaged: fragments that carry the wear of time and place, frequently salvaged from buildings, train yards, or the natural world. These materials are then meticulously adorned, wrapped, or cocooned in vibrant silk and yarn, creating a powerful visual and tactile contrast between the hard and the soft, the discarded and the cherished. The result is work that feels both grounded and ethereal, as though the objects are being healed or held by the color and texture that now envelops them.

Much of Stark’s work blurs the boundary between sculpture and installation. Her smaller curved metal pieces, for example, often resemble inchworms or organic fragments climbing across a wall—modular and responsive to space, they can be arranged, shifted, and grown like living forms. There’s a meditative, almost ritualistic quality to her process, one that reveals a deep sensitivity to the materials she uses and the histories they carry.

Discover more of Rachel’s work on Instagram. As well, her Facebook page.