About Savannah
Savannah Van Niedek was born and raised in the countryside around Wooler, Ontario and was later raised in Kingston, Ontario. In 2001, at the age of 18, she settled in Ireland where she would stay for the next 20 years. Her life in Ireland started in Cork City but she eventually moved to the beautiful West Cork area in 2010 where she opened her home art studio named SavvyLikeThat. She left her career as an accounts manager behind so she could dedicate herself to her art.
In 2012 she was accepted to the art school at Rossa College in Skibbereen where she studied Art and Design and later Professional Arts Practices. She completed the three years of training with distinction, and her work was exhibited by the West Cork Arts Centre in Skibbereen, several private galleries around West Cork and in joint exhibitions with other artists from the West Cork Women’s Art Collective which Savannah co-founded with several of her fellow alumni.
Savannah originally focused her work in Ireland on 2D art and mixed media, then ceramics and mixed media after art school, before finally settling into ceramics and fiber arts around 2017. She began weaving in 2014, spinning in 2017 and even started dyeing her own fiber and yarn later that year. By 2019 she started joining fiber arts shows as a vendor, selling her hand dyed fiber and yarn, while maintaining an online shop for her woven items.
In 2019 Savannah and her family made the decision to move back to Canada where they eventually settled in Tweed, Ontario. She re-established her arts practice in 2025 and reopened her studio SavvyLikeThat in January 2026. She is currently working on her weaving degree through Ontario Handweavers & Spinners and re-establishing herself as a fiber artist in her community.
Savannah splits her time between her studio and her urban permaculture garden where she grows dye plants, medicinal plants and food crops. She also grows weaving materials like willow and loves foraging for natural fibers and materials. When she isn’t making art or working in the garden, she can be found canning and preserving the garden harvest, making herbal remedies and soaps, kayaking on the beautiful rivers and lakes of Hastings County, playing D&D with friends and camping deep in the woods with her best friend.