In 2006  I  moved to the Carpet Capital of the World, Dalton, Georgia. At one point in time 75% of the all the worlds carpet was made within one-hundred miles of Dalton.

 

There was no plan to become  a carpet designer. It found me and it felt like the thing to do. 

​

Two artist friends living in Dalton asked if I knew of anyone who could sublet their apartment because they had just purchased a house. Their landlord was an art collector and would like if it was another artist who lived there. That artist would be me. I was twenty-six, living in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and was ready to break up with my boyfriend and return to Georgia.

​

After moving to Dalton I made a lot of friends, one being the creative director of hospitality carpet at Shaw Industries. I was waiting tables and told him I wanted a different job — one that used my creative talents. A week later he got a call from a head hunter and sent her my way. Two weeks after that I interviewed for five different positions at Mohawk and was offered the job as a designer of high fashion carpet for Karastan Contract. I had taken my drawings and my tintypes to the interview; they told me later that the drawings sealed the deal.

​

I was there for nearly six years, until the recession hit the industry and I was laid off. Often times I feel like the experience was an art education I got paid for. My favorite part of design is in the trending. Being an intuitive and artist I have a knack for knowing what colors and design trends are soon to arrive on the market. 

 

One of the most enriching take aways included becoming a colorist. Until I was thrown into the world of design, my attention was absorbed by neutral landscapes — I'm still drawn to the graphic nature of black and white, the muted and monochromatic — but my time working with greige yarn and a dye house, as well as tuning into color trends each year, exposed me to such a vivid range of color that I began using it in my home; my space before this had been filled with a pallet of neutrals. Color also became another way to communicate with the world — a revelation that was not obvious until I was immersed in the vibrant spectrum that exists in all of nature. (Btw, if you can't already tell, I love jewel tones the best.)

​

And if you've ever wondered who gives the style names and the color names to paints or designer products, that would be the designer or colorist.

​

Below is a small sample of the textiles I worked on while designing.