CLAUDIA MILLS: THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Once Claudia Mills fell in love with rag rugs, that was it. “I think initially, it was just so unique because I was using all different kinds of textures - stripes and plaids and prints - and they all weave up so differently. I was so excited to see how they would look,” Mills explained. While at first the shaping and distortion of various prints drove her work, now Mills works exclusively with solid colors in her professional practice. “With solids, it’s color driven. How will the colors relate to one another?” Mills said of the start of her process. “The thing that happens during the weaving is the yarns that go on to the loom, which is called the warp, that’s a whole set of colors in itself,” Mills explained. “When the fabric strips get woven through those yarns, these colors interact with one another, so then your brain mixes those two colors and makes a new color.”

Mills’ carpets have distinctive blocks and stripes, which she refers to as “shadow blocks,” that appear when the color of the yarn and fabric strips blend together into something new. “We try to manipulate the colors, try all these different combinations. We get inspired by artwork, by nature, by whatever…color is endless,” she said. This willingness to be inspired by the world around her is present in her stock work, but also in her custom pieces. Though customers often come to her with ideas and inspirations of their own, Mills says she’s also often inspired by the artwork and colors already dominating the space where the custom piece will go. She either does in-person walkthroughs or closely examines photos to really get an idea of what type of rug would fit best in the space.

The weaving process is certainly a labor of love. Mills describes the process as long and labor intensive. Apart from the design work, setting up the loom to begin working on a single rug takes a full day, including measuring and winding yarn, cutting fabric, and setting up and tensioning the loom. The design process is incredibly tactile, allowing Mills and her team to really see what the materials will look like when woven together. “So, we sit down with little bits of the fabrics, we use that as our palette. We don’t use colored pencils or paints or the computer, Mills explained while describing their process. “We just sit down and pull the colors that we want to use, do it all on paper to scale and tape them down…we cut these little stripes and little blocks lines them up, see how they look, switch them around until we’re happy with the design.”

Once the loom is prepped and the design is set, the weaving process can begin. It’s difficult to say just how long it takes to weave a single rug, since they produce and sell pieces of wildly varying sizes. Mills used the example of one of their smallest designs by width, their two-foot runner. When weaving a piece of that width, they can complete approximately one foot of finished work per hour. They can’t weave straight through, since the process of weaving is physically intense, so they have to take breaks. A 2x8 runner could take up to several days to complete. Each rug is woven based on a set warp design, with a corresponding design sheet. Some sheets contain information for multiple rugs.

How many rugs has Mills made in her career? It’s difficult for her to say for sure off the top of her head. “I don’t know why I did it, but when I started weaving rag rugs, I started with warp number 1. We just numbered warp 1305…I’ve kept records of every single rug.” With her amazing career beginning in 1985, Mills has made thousands of rugs, each an incredible representation of her creative spirit and those of the dedicated weavers she’s worked with over the years.

These images show Claudia Mills in her studio explaining the basics of her design process. The second image is a close-up of one of the design sheets she and the other weavers use to plan and craft their rugs.

PHOTO CREDIT: Talia Pugliese