Under The Rug

Kim Nixon uses traditional rug hooking to make rugs and footstools that are heirlooms. She hooks her own designs from hand dyed cut wool strips to make coverings that last 50 to 100 years.

There is no glue or adhesive used on the backs of these pieces. It is the loops of wool hooked into cotton or linen backing that form a pile holding each other in. This is a labor-intensive process that creates an art piece that is beautiful and functional. Kim comes to rug hooking with an MFA in painting and twenty years of working in that medium. Incorporating fiber into her experience of making images has caused her to embrace primitive simplicity. Yet her work is also dedicated to pattern and color movement as a background to her images. Kim uses wide cut wool, many times hand cut as she works to give the piece a mosaic texture. Her images try to play to beauty and rhythm while at the same time offering an image that might stir a universal association. The three-dimensional design potential for the footstools has given her license to have a story unfold as a viewer moves around a piece.