trish andersen

Though she grew up in Georgia’s “carpet capital,” Trish Andersen never thought she would be in the rug business.

But the Savannah fiber artist, best known for her bold, hand-tufted wall work, is about to launch a new carpet line.

The artist: Andersen was born and raised in Dalton, GA, the so-called “carpet capital of the world.” She graduated from Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) with a degree in fibers in 2005.

After college, Andersen moved to NYC where she lived and worked for more than 13 years. She did displays for Anthropologie and later started a company that designed and fabricated installations for events, sets, restaurants and retail spaces.

Burnt out from commercial work, the SCAD grad wanted to return to creating her own art. She discovered tufting after a friend shared a video of people creating hand-tufted rugs in India.

Andersen was hooked. She researched materials and taught herself how to use the tufting gun. That was four years ago.

The studio: Trish Andersen Studio is based in Savannah, where the artist moved in 2018. She works out of a first-floor studio stacked with colorful yarns.

The goods & materials: Tufted fine art, primarily for the wall that is colorful and layered, soft and textured ($350 to $450). Also collections of digitally printed floor mats.

The process: Andersen uses a tufting gun to punch individual pieces of yarn through a fabric sheet to create various shapes and designs in her wall art.

The art she creates is “like painting with yarn.”

Other favorites: Digitally printed mats ($78 to $188).

Inspirations:

The repetitive process of tufting. “It is my meditation.”
The energy of color.
Living in Savannah and being surrounded by the beautiful trees and marshes.

Fun, special or unusual requests:

The tool she uses to create her wall art. It is called a single needle tufting gun, typically used in rug manufacturing.
Custom rugs.

“When I started tufting, I made the decision not to make rugs because I wanted the freedom to not think about function in that way,” said Andersen.

Awards & honors:

– Design Miami for SCAD in 2019

– Commission from Coca-Cola to represent its launch of Coca-Cola Georgia Peach soda.

– Carpet collaboration in 2020 with Shaw Contract.

– Lobby installation for Peeples Cancer Institute in Dalton.

“I had leukemia when I was little,” said Andersen. “My first memory of making art was in the clinic at Egleston Hospital (now part of Children’s Health Care of Atlanta).

What’s new: