A checkerboard of funky carpet samples paved the lobby floor of The Charles at the New/Next Film Festival. Like 75% of the world’s carpets, these colorful tufted squares all rolled out of one place, the carpet capital of the world, Dalton, Georgia. Carpet Cowboys, an intimate dive into the floor-covering industry and its cast of quirky professionals, had its world premiere Saturday, August 20th, at Baltimore’s new film festival. And Baltimore showed up—the premiere sold out in advance, creating a massive wait list of hopeful viewers.
The momentum for the John Wilson-backed documentary was hard to beat for other festival-featured films. Along with the eccentric flooring trod by every attendee, a cowboy hat and suit made from a psychedelic patterned carpet, reminiscent of a bowling alley floor, loomed by the box office. Carpet Cowboys co-directors Noah Collier and Emily MacKenzie, in her bedazzled western attire, floated around The Charles before the premiere. Carpet was the center of attention.
“We went there with no agenda and found a rich world of people,” said Mackenzie at the Q&A following the screening. What started off as a look into the carpet industry blossomed into a must-watch showcase of the human spirit. “This is all design that God gave us,” said the documentary’s star cowboy, Rodrick James. A long-time carpet designer, James takes the film crew on a hunt for inspiration around a barn in Dalton. He explains the patterns in his designs are taken largely from nature, “Why make something new when it’s all here.”
Despite James’ Scottish accent, he oozes Americana. He’s dressed in washed denim, cowboy hats, and leather vests. Not just a carpet designer, but an ideas man—from clothing design to opening a country bar in the Philippines, James spouts out a new business dream in almost every scene he films. James has made a life for himself in the carpet industry but wants more. Through his ventures and dreams the film carves out a man who just wants to add to the world, he wants to create—this is at the heart of what all these cowboys want from their dying industry.
As carpet falls out of fashion, so does the production in Dalton. Masonry, among other flooring materials, is the new frontier. Harry Ward, a former carpet cowboy turned stone peddler forages for stones with old carvings and likeness to human faces. He says he looks for the “expression of the soul” in the material he works with: “I think we’re reaching back to being a creator.” Ward philosophizes becoming like “The Creator,” aka God, is the motivation behind what they do in Dalton. This statement is greeted moments later by Ward making turkey calls while searching for stones in a creek.
Between the moments of sheer weirdness like a sunset hoedown on a beach in the Philippines to heartfelt proclamations of passion, it’s difficult not to become obsessed with the cast of cowboys featured in the film. Carpet Cowboys began as a documentary examining the carpet capital of the world, but evolved into an affectionate portrayal of the human desire to create.