About Joetheflowerguy

I rarely begin a rug with a plan. More often, I begin with a feeling.

Color arrives first—felt before it is seen. My mind seems to live in a full-spectrum palette, awake and dreaming at the same time. Images come to me in sleep, linger quietly, or surface unexpectedly as my hands move across linen. When I hook, I feel as though I am somewhere else entirely—hovering above the work, yet deeply embedded within it. Pieces of memory, love, and lived experience are pulled into place, loop by loop. I’m always gently surprised when the final loop is drawn.

My work is rooted in nature and transition: wind through fields, elemental rhythms, organic forms, and the unseen threads that connect us to land, color, and one another. There is an earthy, almost pagan sensibility in the way I interpret color—drawn from soil, sky, growth, decay, and renewal. Each rug becomes a tactile color wheel, holding emotion, touch, and memory.

Known as Joetheflowerguy, I’m a farmer at heart—husband, grandfather, dog-lover, and lifelong maker. The nickname grew from years of building and gifting floral displays, a practice not unlike rug hooking: arranging living color with care and intuition. My relationship with fibre began early, sitting at the base of my mother’s old treadle sewing machine, absorbing the rhythm of making. I learned to knit as a teenager and have worked with fibre ever since.

I learned rug hooking during a pivotal life transition while working at Deanne Fitzpatrick Studios. It offered what I needed most at the time: reflection, creativity, and a slower, more attentive way of being. That work blended seamlessly with life on our rural farm near the Northumberland Strait in Nova Scotia, where my husband and I tend gardens, orchards, a greenhouse—and spend as much time as possible outdoors with our dogs. My logo, Loopy, is itself a rug—an affectionate composite of the dogs who have shared this land with us.

I believe a piece succeeds when the expected becomes the unexpected—like watching a four-year-old grandchild unwrap a rug, toss it on the floor, and sit down without hesitation. That, to me, is the highest compliment.

Many of my larger works are framed in repurposed wood, built by my husband in our small barn as each piece is completed. My favorite frame is a Chéticamp frame, and my most treasured hook is an heirloom passed down through my spouse’s family—tools carrying their own histories into every piece.

I am, at heart, a regular farm guy who likes to hook—guided by color, intuition, memory, and the quiet magic of making something by hand.