BRAVE NEW RUGS • With wool as her medium, Rhode Island artist
Meg Little creates sublime painterly images for wall or floor
art
as deftly as a painter would use a brush on canvas, Meg Little wields her special tufting tool across a backcloth stretched floor to ceiling on a wooden frame.
THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF RUGS IN THIS world. The first is simply a floor covering — practical, utilitarian, low-key. The second nourishes the soul. Rhode Island artist Meg Little makes the latter — handmade one-of-a-kind wool
creations that have more in common with contemporary
painting than traditional rug making. A happy collision of
riotous colors, bold shapes, and emphatic patterns laid out
in large gestural swaths, her rugs hang commandingly on
museum walls (she was featured in a show at the Newport Art
Museum earlier this year) but are never too precious to settle
comfortably under a beloved easy chair.
Created in her home studio, a converted barn in
Middletown, Rhode Island, Little’s rugs are influenced by
design originating in Africa, Australia, and Central America.
She adores South African painted houses, Yoruba beads,
Australian aboriginal paintings. For the large-scale rugs cre-
ated for her Newport exhibit, she looked to the work of the
African-American quilt makers of Gee’s Bend, Alabama.
MEG LITTLE
HANDMADE RUGS
meglittle.com
OPEN STUDIO
August 6-7
260 Turner Road
Middletown, RI
TRUNK SHOW
August 12-14
Blue Heron Gallery
22 Morey Farm Drive
Deer Isle, ME