We recently connected with Steven Reyes and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Steven, thanks for joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I learned how to make rugs by simply throwing myself at the craft. I stumbled across the hobby via TikTok seeing a video from a user, @imakerugs, and saw that he made some really cool rugs of different characters, memes, and music artists that I like. At the time I was still recovering from a shoulder surgery due to a mountain biking accident. I remember seeing him make a Kid Cudi rug and wanting to buy it so badly. At the end of his videos he always had his website plugged in to where you can buy a rug gun and he had a tutorial on how to build a frame and what all was needed. I remember telling myself if I would buy this, so why not learn how I could make this. Seeing that he had all the pieces out there already I went ahead and decided to pull the trigger (no pun intended) and purchase my rug gun. From there it was a waiting game until I received my rug gun. During those 3 weeks of waiting I studied this craft like no other trying to understand the process of it, what to expect while making rugs, the techniques I can utilize, and all the extra stuff I needed to buy and build to get started. Finally my rug gun came in and I was ready, or so I thought… I learned very quickly that preparation can only get you so far. I was still in my sling when I first got my rug gun and getting that technique down was a really difficult process for me. I had gone through another 3 weeks of trial and error before successfully making my first rug, and the result was pretty terrible, but I had a product there, one that needed lots of improvements but a product nonetheless. When I saw the first rug I made in person I knew that as I went on the product would get better as I can experiment with different process and techniques that can help get the quality better along the way. This craft has taken a lot of patience to get down and a lot of resilience to get through the process. While making rugs I can’t tell you how many times I hated how my rugs were coming out during the process of making them. So may thoughts of self doubt, “this looks terrible”, “what am I even doing?”, “they are going to hate this rug”, “this doesn’t even look like what I want it to look like”, etc. You have to be able to push through all that self doubt. I learned that I won’t let my final product reflect my inner narrative that I get during the process of production at that time, and that’s why I say it take patience and resilience to get something done. Each rug was a new opportunity to better myself and my product. That’s how I had to looked at it. Prove to myself that I can make whatever I want to make. That’s what kept me going. There was no way to rush the process to get the result that I wanted which was really aggravating because I would see other artist’s work and feel bad about mine, but I eventually got to a point where I am happy with what I make now and the self comparing went down a lot making me happier and content with my work. It just took constant trial and error and consistency. There really was no other way. You have to be bad at something to get better at it. I don’t think I am where I want to be quality wise even to this day, but I am for damn sure a lot better than my first rug. So I compare everything to that guy in the sling recovering from a shoulder surgery who got his first product out.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

The Rug Laboratory started off as a way of escaping myself, but it then turned into a passion that I simply became obsessed with. For me The Rug Laboratory is all about pushing the boundaries of what an ordinary object can be. It’s about challenging yourself to do something you don’t even know if you can pull off or not. It’s using fear to push you forward as opposed to holding you back. It’s about challenging yourself, your abilities, your creativity, and having fun while doing it. I want The Rug Laboratory to be an experience for everyone one day, something about thinking about creating something and bringing that thought to life that makes you feel so powerful. I love bringing people’s ideas to life. Seeing the smile on their face when they get their rug is a reward that you can’t put money on. The way their eyes light up, the stunned face they make, the dap up when they are impressed, the happiness you can see that it brings them. It feels like an honor for me to be a vessel for their idea or want. This craft became so much more than escaping myself. It became a way to help create a custom one of a kind piece that anyone can call their own. One of my favorite things to do is making business logos because nobody loves their business more than them and to see their logo in the form of a rug is just something you don’t see every day. You can see how proud they are of their business and what it means to them. There’s so much passion behind it. I feel like it is my responsibility to get the best that I can at this craft so I can continue to make people happy and bring ideas to life as well as push out a few designs of my own in the process. I have a lot of stuff planned. It’s just taking it a day at time for now.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My main goal is to focus on what all I can improve on for myself and my craft. I am never satisfied with what I do, I always think there is something I can improve on. Always. That is a gift and curse all on its own. I truly believe that the more you work on yourself and the things you love the more it reaches the right people and like minded people. It also sheds things and people that may not be meant for you or your vision as well. It can be a viscous cycle sometimes. I just like to have everything speak for itself and attract who it attracts organically. Nothing forced. I want people to look back and remember how I started and what all it took. I have so many posts and videos that have flopped but I tell myself when I make it where I want to be people will look at that as see that I took that to get there. I have faith in that. I am nowhere near where I want to be yet but I hope that in this journey when it’s all said and done and I am 6 feet under that I was able to inspire people with my work, actions, and/or my words one day. You know, leave something behind outside of myself with the time that I have now and if for nobody else than at least for my daughters, Elena and Ella also my little cousin Ryan. The creative process and operating a business can feel very selfish sometimes. It takes a toll on me at time. But I truly believe that I have an ability to create things that capture eyes with what I do, I would love to be able to attach a message that can inspire people along side with the product itself. Not just in rugs but with anything I do. This craft has literally saved me, It would be an honor to inspire someone to want to try something new that eventually saves them as well if they are in a dark place as I was when I started.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding part about being an artist and entrepreneur is having the power to bring an idea to life. I often wonder what a world filled with the ideas that didn’t come to life looks like. There is just something so powerful about bringing ann internal thought or idea into the physical world. Being able to hold your idea in your hands. To be able to feel your idea. See your idea. Have others see your idea. And knowing that if it weren’t for you this very thing wouldn’t exist yet. It’s exclusive, it’s intimate. That’s how I view all forms of art. It’s all an expression of one’s self, and that is something nobody can take away from you but the right people can appreciate.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theruglaboratory/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheRugLaboratory
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@theruglaboratory