The Founder's Story
, by Chaos Agent , 4 min reading time
RareHaus: The Structure I Needed, So I Built It
I didn’t build RareHaus to make noise. I built it because I was drowning in silence. The kind of silence you grow up in when questioning things means punishment. When your body isn’t yours. When art is rebellion. I was raised in a cult that taught me to perform obedience before I could even understand what freedom meant. I was taught to fear queerness, to distrust intellect, to submit to men, to erase my own thoughts in the name of salvation.
But I knew even then—something about that world was wrong.
So I did what I wasn’t supposed to do: I got out, went to college, studied art, and gave myself permission to see the world differently. I earned my BFA and started working with students before I even graduated—first as a Resident Assistant, then as an administrative assistant to the Area Director and Chair of the Art Department. And what I saw changed everything.
Because it wasn’t just me who had been silenced. It wasn’t just me who felt disposable. I watched brilliant students—queer, poor, neurodivergent, international, working multiple jobs just to be here—create work that would never see daylight. Not because they weren’t good enough, but because there was no structure to hold them. No place that said: You belong here. Your work matters. Let’s build something around you.
After college, I did what so many artists do—I hustled. I consulted. I worked in operations and sales for major corporations, learning the systems from the inside. Eventually, I came back to higher education, this time as the Marketing and Sales Coordinator for a university print shop. I learned how to make campaigns run. I learned how to talk to leadership, sell creative ideas, and stretch a two-person team into the output of ten. I kept working with students -- always with students.
Eventually, I earned a tenured leadership role as a Marketing Director. I oversaw campaigns that reached thousands. I hired student creatives, coached them through imposter syndrome, and helped them build real-world portfolios instead of hypothetical ones. My team won awards. Our dining program ranked #1 in the nation. The work looked great on paper. But inside? I was still watching brilliant students burn out in a system that didn’t care if they survived. I couldn’t save them. But I could build something for them.
RareHaus is that something.
It’s not just a brand—it’s an answer to the question that haunted me every time a student cried in my office, every time someone asked if their work would ever matter, every time I sat through another boardroom meeting where the “real world” meant muting everything that made you human.
RareHaus is an experiment. A blueprint. A refusal. A refusal to let the next generation of creatives walk straight into debt just to hope for a chance. A refusal to keep pretending that expression and professionalism are incompatible. A refusal to dilute meaning in order to make it marketable.
We don’t do that here.
RareHaus supports student artists through paid collaborations, not unpaid dreams. We design our store so they can sell before they graduate—so they can test the waters, find their voice, and get proof that they’re good enough before the industry tries to erase them.
We built the Haus Poor Program to support overlooked students with real income. We launched the Candle of Burning Out as a permanent fundraiser to help cover food, rent, books, or therapy. We’re building a future physical site—a creative infrastructure project in the Appalachian region that will provide 12 full-time salaried residencies, shared studios, a gallery and performance space, and free public access for students and misfit makers.
We’re not here to perform progress. We’re here to build it. We don’t care about mass appeal, we care about meaning. Our products are loud because silence never saved anyone. Our branding is rebellious because compliance never built anything worth keeping. And our politics? Human-first, not party-first. We’re not trying to play the game — we’re trying to write new rules.
We believe that art is work. That misfits deserve more than mentorship—they deserve money, mentorship, and a megaphone. We believe that rebellion is sacred. That resistance can be joyful. That building a business doesn’t have to mean selling your soul.
RareHaus is the structure I needed but never had.
So I built it for the ones coming next.