Savaree Q & A
“Even if you’re not interested in making rugs — it’s not just about making rugs, you know.”
That’s the message Savaree Hazard-Chaney shares with anyone who asks about her unique tuft-your-own rug business, TuftxPVD.
Hazard-Chaney, 32, lies back in her vibrant Pawtucket studio sporting her typical bandana, hiking boots, and petite gold accessories. TuftxPVD moved to the Hope Artiste Village in January, a feat that hardly recognizes her degree in Psychology and Chemical Dependency from Rhode Island College.
For the past three years, Hazard-Chaney has continued to foster connections, but through fiber arts this time. She isn’t afraid to admit her humble TikTok beginnings in the tufting world, and said authenticity is as inspiration for her and her business. Similarly, the black, queer female community has found inspiration in Hazard-Chaney as she nurtures accessible creativity in Rhode Island. “I feel like tufting is in Providence because of TuftxPVD.”
Q: Describe when you knew you wanted to make tufting your full-time job.
Hazard-Chaney: When I started tufting, it wasn’t about starting a business. I just love tufting. So naturally [I’m] out in the community, sharing my work with the creative capital. The opportunity presented itself, so it was just about whether or not I was going to answer that call. In hindsight, I realized all these things were going so terrible for me at that time, like my job becoming stressful, and not taking care of myself. Now I realize that all those things were setting me up to take this opportunity.
When you share with people that you got this idea from TikTok, how do they react?
Most people are like, ‘that makes sense,’ because during COVID everybody was locked down, and it was the awakening of TikTok. I remember telling myself I was never even gonna have the app. I had four kids at home, so I was hearing the stuff all day long. You know what got me on TikTok? It was (singer) Megan Thee Stallion. When she did that ‘I’m a savage’ dance, I learned and recorded it with the kids. And that’s how I ended up scrolling and finding tufting.
What were some of your biggest obstacles in creating TuftxPVD so far?
I thought, ‘Can I own a business? What does that look like’? Getting over that first hump of imposter syndrome, then the legalities of it all, it’s a lot. I knew that I wanted to lead with being an artist. This isn’t a money grab. I wanted to value myself, and hopefully have a community that also values me. I haven’t been able to afford this since I started. I’ve been blessed with hard work and a community, so I just haven’t been afraid to keep going.
What are some things that you do to center yourself and come back to your artistic roots?
Carving out time to create my own work. One of my favorite things to do as a born painter-turned fiber artist is figure out how to mix colors and gradients in something so fixed like yarn. It’s just so tactile, a totally different experience. I’m doing this all with no type of tufting background, so I know there’s a lot of little things that I could be missing. But none of this makes sense if I’m not tufting. As much as I love teaching, I haven’t had all the time in the world. It took me all year to tuft this one rug, and that’s OK. I could have gone a little faster, but I like that I’m doing it this way.
What is your favorite part of teaching someone to tuft a rug?
There’s so much. I’ve taught around 300 people so far, and there’s a 20-30 minute learning curve I see every single class. And then it just clicks for people. We start with nothing other than a traced image on a piece of fabric, and you get to walk out with an entire rug. Watching it click for people is so good. I really love seeing how proud people are of themselves at the end of class. I hope that my tufting community continues to find me and wants to learn from me. This isn’t a paint and sip experience, there’s an entire skill you learn, then you walk out with a tangible piece of art.
How do you prioritize being eco-friendly in this space and within your art?
I teach with regular acrylic yarn, because it’s cheap and it comes with many colors, which is great for workshops. However, the yarn is basically [made up of] plastic. It’s not great, and the tufting machine creates a lot of waste at the end of each tuft. I collect all of that waste and we use it as stuffing and as decorations. I try to do as much as I can with the acrylic stuff. I eventually would love to figure out how to switch to more natural fibers, but it’s expensive to teach with something like wool.
How can tufting become more accessible, what would that look like?
Being willing to offer my knowledge, skills, and tools to people is just the beginning of accessibility for me. My classes are between $150 and $175. It’s not a cheap date. However, we’re barely covering my materials, and maybe a quarter of my time. There’s a lot of ways to figure out how to lower that barrier, and that starts with getting more people to do what I do. I’ve had people who have taken this class, and now offer tufting in their space. If more people are doing it, more people connect to the work. This is how we expand and make this accessible.
Tell me about your community programs.
I started a program at the Providence Boys and Girls Club where I took a group of students through a six-week tufting course, and sprinkled in conversations about what it means to run a business. All the things I wish I got when I started. It was an empowering experience. It’s good that these kids are in a place like Providence where they have opportunities to explore a creative lifestyle.
Did you think you’d be tufting at this point in your life?
I did clinical counseling work before transitioning into the nonprofit world, where I was a director for a while in the substance use and recovery community in Providence. I loved the work, it’s how I connected with our cities' most vulnerable communities. But I burnt out quickly — by fall 2022 I was requesting a leave of absence, and just never returned. I went to a bunch of different schools over the course of nine years, transitioned into three different studio spaces, and raised my family in the middle of it all. TuftxPVD wasn’t in the plans, I got my LLC while focusing on my health and art. And now I make rugs!
This article was published in The Boston Globe on February 17 2025. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/02/17/metro/ri-pawtucket-artist-tufting-rug-business/
