The Burlap Project x SAIC

At Magnifico Coffee Roasters, we’ve always believed that coffee isn’t just a product, it’s a story.

A story of people, place, and purpose. So when the opportunity emerged to collaborate with our Avondale neighbor, artist and designer Jack Cave, it felt like a natural extension of everything we value: creativity, community, and honoring the hands behind our coffee.

The Burlap Project began the way the best creative ideas do: through conversation, curiosity, and a shared love of design. Earlier this year, Adam visited Jack at his live-in studio above The Facility, the celebrated art space run by his brother, artist Nick Cave, and Nick’s partner, designer Bob Faust. Together, they’ve built a hybrid space that is part studio, part gallery, part creative sanctuary, showcasing a rotation of artists from across disciplines.

At the time, Chicago sculptor Lucy Slivinski was installing her work in the gallery, and we began to cross paths as she stopped in for coffee on her way to her build-outs. One visit led to another, and soon Adam found himself at her opening, where he finally met Jack after narrowly missing him several times at Magnifico.

As they talked, Adam told him about our family’s story, our love for art and design, and the often overlooked beauty of the burlap coffee bags we receive from our producers across South America and Central America. These bags represent lineage, labor, and landscape, each one a record of origin, variety, and pride. I shared the idea of exploring them as raw material for upcycled, conceptual design work.

Jack didn’t just nod along, he lit up. He saw potential immediately, whether integrated into his personal practice or explored through his students in the SAIC MFA Fashion, Body & Garment program, where he teaches.

Months later, Jack reached out: He wanted to build a full-semester project around our burlap bags. And he wanted us to be part of the entire process — from concept to critique to final showcase. What a privilege.

We hosted Jack and his students at Magnifico, where they each selected their own burlap bags. Angelica and Adam prepared a presentation on our family history, the symbolism in the branding, and the journey of each bag from farm to roastery. The goal was for the students to understand the depth behind the material, not as discarded packaging, but as cultural and agricultural storytelling.

From there, the students began designing, sketching, prototyping, and experimenting. Weeks later, Angelica and Adam were invited to the first round of critiques. Jack generously allowed us to participate, he encouraged, challenged, and helped the students expand their ideas. The energy in the room was electric, thoughtful, collaborative, full of possibility.

We returned again for the final critiques, where we saw how their pieces had evolved:

• How they navigated the constraints of the material.
• How they found metaphor in its texture and structure.
• How they pushed past the obvious into true artistry.

After the final work was completed, we spent a day interviewing each student, listening to their stories, inspirations, and challenges. It was one of the most rewarding parts of the entire process, seeing how deeply they engaged with the material and how much intention they brought to every detail.

To celebrate the work, we transformed Magnifico into a one-night-only gallery, showcasing all of the finished pieces after hours. Jack and Adam spent the evening before pre-planning the layout, transporting full mannequins from his studio to ours, and mapping the story of the exhibition. After close of business the next day, we cleared the space and built the show.

As the students arrived, they added final touches, adjusted draping, re-tied elements, and made micro-adjustments only an artist would see, the kind of care that makes the work sing.

That night, with students, neighbors, friends, and family filling the shop, the space felt transformed. There were hors d’oeuvres, coffee (of course), conversations, and moments of awe. It was ephemeral, up for three hours and then gone. And that fleeting quality made it even more special.

This collaboration marked the third anniversary of The Burplap project, and it meant the world to us to be involved from start to finish. The trust Jack placed in us, in our story, our perspective, our yes-and approach to creativity,  made this project unforgettable.

We’re deeply grateful, and we hope to continue expanding this partnership for years to come. The Burlap Project is a reminder of why Magnifico exists: to bring people together through craft, creativity, and community.