Rachel Walls was born and raised in Maine. She holds two degrees — one in Women’s Studies and another in American Cultural Studies — from Bates College. Rachel began her career at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and was then a Curator of Education and Outreach at the Jackson Hole Historical Society and Museum. Next she was the Director of Exhibitions and Design Conferences at Western Interiors and Design magazine. Rachel directed the Western Interiors Design + Home Show in San Francisco, the Western Design Conference in Cody, Wyoming and the Southwest Design Conference in Santa Fe while at the magazine.
Rachel Walls and Dahlov Ipcar seated below Blue Moon Dance, which was completed in 2014. Frost Gully Gallery, Freeport, Maine. January 13, 2016. Photograph by Rene Roy.
Rachel organized exhibitions and tours in collaboration with the Autry Museum, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, the Cooper-Hewitt-Smithsonian Design Museum, the DeYoung Museum, the Denver Design Center, the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Pacific Design Center and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. These events included lectures accredited through the American Institute of Architects, the American Society of Interior Designers and the International Interior Design Association.
Rachel Walls stands before artist Dahlov Ipcar's portrait of her father, the renowned artist William Zorach. Photograph by Pat Davidson Reef.
After leaving the magazine, Rachel executed the development of educational programming for the American Institute of Architects and the Town of Portola Valley, California using the first LEED Platinum Civic Center in the United States as a case study for architects as more efficient municipal centers began to be developed in 2008. She has curated design exhibitions for the US Green Building Council, West Coast Green and the Urban Land Institute featuring sustainably produced, non-toxic furnishings and building systems.
Rachel Walls curated the fine art exhibitions Marguerite Zorach, Dahlov Ipcar and William Zorach at Samson in Boston and Dahlov Ipcar: Recent Paintings at Frost Gully Gallery in Freeport, Maine in 2015; Dahlov Ipcar: Stories at the Portland Public Library (Portland, Maine) in 2017 and Dahlov Ipcar: Blue Moons and Menageries at the Bates College Museum of Art in 2018. Dahlov Ipcar and Robert Andrew Parker, both represented by Rachel Walls Fine Art, were featured in 2018 at the University of Cincinnati in a group exhibition — Persistence of Vision: Early and Late Works by Artists with Macular Degeneration — a joint project of the Vision and Art Project, American Macular Degeneration Foundation and the University of Cincinnati.
Bug City — a children’s book written and illustrated by Dahlov Ipcar in 1975 — was re-released by North Atlantic Books/Penguin Random House during summer 2019. Ipcar’s flamboyant, colorful illustrations create a charming story for readers to enjoy and learn how to identify a wide variety of bugs. “In both my painting and my writing, I create worlds of the imagination. I transform ordinary reality into a reality that has special meaning to me. I hope it will also have special meaning to others,” said Dahlov Ipcar — who used her parent’s home at 276 Hicks Street in Brooklyn, New York as the inspiration for the bug family’s house in the story.
Three thousand and forty (3040) copies of Bug City were donated to First Book — a nonprofit social enterprise based in Washington DC that believes education is the best way out of poverty and provides new books, educational resources, coats, snacks and hygiene kits to educators serving children in need across the United States and Canada. Primary schools, libraries, English as a second language programs, emergency relief programs, visual and performing arts programs, parent and family engagement programs and health service programs benefited from the Bug City gift.
DAHLOV IPCAR. Sacred Grove. 2012. Oil on Linen.
Dahlov Ipcar’s paintings and textiles were on view at the Blaine House — the Governor of Maine’s residence in Augusta — during the 2019 Holiday Season. One of Ipcar’s oil paintings — Sacred Grove — a real place in Georgetown, Maine remains on loan to the Governor of Maine’s residence.
Robert Andrew Parker's artwork was featured from January through March 2020 in the Seagrave Exhibition — a one-of-a-kind collaboration between the University of Cincinnati's Design, Architecture, Art and Planning Galleries and Acre Books — based on The Ambrose J. and Vivian T. Seagrave Museum of 20th Century American Art — a literary novel told through fictitious labels accompanying imaginary artworks in an invented museum.
Photograph by Ross Bertran.
Rachel Walls Fine Art has collaborated with Sea Bags — a Portland, Maine-based company that crafts unique and utilitarian bags out of recycled sails — to produce an exclusive collection featuring illustrations from Dahlov Ipcar’s children’s books Deep Sea Farm in three different styles and sizes and a bucket bag from My Wonderful Christmas Tree. Additional Sea Bags by Dahlov Ipcar in other designs can be ordered through Rachel Walls Fine Art.
Rachel Walls wrote an essay on The History of Art Education in Maine for the State of Maine's Bi-Centennial Celebration. The essay was adapted for use in remote learning curriculum for High School Students. Walls has instructed public and private school students of all grade levels, as well as speaking to adult groups, on various topics related to architecture, craft, design, education, history and fine art.