Empowering Artists with Power Tools: Tim Eads by Jamia Weir

Empowering Artists with Power Tools: Tim Eads

By Jamia Weir

Tim Eads is both literally and figuratively looking at the world through rose colored glasses. A teaching artist generous with his time, expertise and energy, he exudes good vibes and style. At his recent rug tufting workshop hosted by Textile Arts LA at the Hawthorne Arts Complex, Tim was dressed head-to-toe in unique geometric shaped pink glasses and mixed-matched clothing that may have inspired the many abstract designs that sprung up all weekend on the wooden frames he built and later gave to all of the participants. 

There are not many guns I like, besides water guns and artist Natalie Baxter’s quilted and stuffed “warm guns,” and now these incredibly easy-to-use and hard-to-break rug tufting guns that I’ve become familiar with, thanks to Mr. Tim Eads. Tim told me “these things are like indestructible” which I liked hearing, as he was rescuing me from a bit of tangled yarn in the gear, because I was later able to troubleshoot on my own.

The 15-20 of us gathered there that day connected through thread, multicolored wool yarns on cones, doubled up, to be exact. We became like soldiers of yarn, as we gained comfort in using the tufting guns we were armed with, either ones that make cuts, to give a shag rug look and feel, or the “looper gun” that makes little loops instead.

It was fun to try both and get the different textures associated with each. We got into a rhythm, bits of yarn fell at our feet, fibers collected along the bottom of the frame, we wore scissors on a string around our necks for easy access trimming, which would happen often. I found myself easily connecting to the “flow state” –one I’ve entered into many times before during art making----and one of the many reasons I love creating art. Flow is essentially another word for being “in the zone,” a psychological state of being one communes with when completely immersed in an activity.

Jamia Weir working on her piece.

Since I was so easily brought into this state of flow in using the tufting gun and because of the speed of this style being much faster than tufting by hand with a punch needle or other method, I ended up buying one of the (discounted for participants!) tufting guns. I went back to the Sunday workshop in order to make my purchase and to experiment with a material I often engage with creatively, “plarn”, plastic bag yarn. Tim welcomed me and told me to hop on a frame and try out the black garbage bag plarn I had made. The plastic bag yarn didn’t work as well as I’d hoped, but at the Textile Summit “Text to Textile” workshop I took with weaver Sarah Haskell the following weekend, I learned how to spin paper yarn using a makeshift drop spindle made from a CD and a dowel. I want to see if I can get the plarn to become even finer using this method and see if it works better with the tufting process in the future. I also plan to continue to experiment with strips of scrap fabric keeping in line with the spirit of upcycling and eco art my art often engages. Tim shared one of his pieces with me that he created using scrap fabric and told me he even has a special fabric strip cutter. “Oh yeah, I’m crazy!” He said with a laugh.

The back of Jamia’s rug tufting, in process.

Tim Eads (I almost want to call him Tim “Make it work” Gunn of Project Runway fame!) only very recently got into the rug tufting game, when his artist friend Kate Garman shared the process with him a couple years ago. Since then, he has fallen in love with tufting. Tim was creating handmade bags featuring his printed designs prior to that. The bag business did not take off in the same way that rug tufting has. Since then, Tim and his wife have been “living off tufting!” If you do a google search for rug tufting he is among the first three results that show up. Tim inspires me in the way that he has been able to confidently monetize his artistry in recent years and completely transform his life. He gets to make art, travel as a teaching artist and meet interesting people, spreading his good vibes by empowering other artists with power tools. Here’s to a man who manifested his own cozy art world of fiber art in his own unique way. I believe I speak for many artists when I say, thank you very much for sharing this process of rug tufting with us Tim Eads!

The front of Jamia’s completed rug tufting, 2 small experiments and a larger piece.

Watch the YouTube video of the recent L.A. rug tufting workshop.

To keep up with Jamia’s art investigations, visit her on Instagram at @artgirlsy 

To follow Tim Eads Rug Tufting and art adventures, visit his website and Instagram at @this_is_tim_eads 

…and hopefully he will come to a city soon near you!  

*all photographs taken by Jamia Weir at the September 21st workshop