By Sammy Jimenez
Erik Sandoval, a 23-year-old entrepreneur, is Stockton’s most experienced custom rug designer, and most local residents aren’t aware of the creativity lying right in their own neighborhood. The spark of his lucrative journey started when he was a small kid.
“I wanna say I was six at least, I had a desktop computer in my own room,” said Sandoval.
“I remember the little kid feeling in me and the feeling of euphoria and wow, people can do this. Can I learn from this?”
Sandoval began his artsy adventure by simply making rugs he his friend Scott Lariosa were interested in, for themselves to keep. This gave Sandoval the skills to break ground when he was ready to go pro and make a business for himself. A big inspiration for the idea was social media, such as Tiktok and Instagram. As the platforms shot up in popularity during the pandemic, he became increasingly interested in combining his artistic designs with the skills he could learn along the way.
”It was covid and I just saw a bunch of videos in the summer of 2020. I just kept seeing these other people making rugs, and I’d never ever seen that before. I kinda just literally envisioned myself doing it as well; like I could see them in me.”
With his own website selling rugs and other branded merchandise, Sandoval’s uses his original artist name “less”, as part of his online brand known as “Rugsbyless.”
Sandoval uses what’s called a tufting gun to shoot the yarn through a standing canvas. Before that however, he must wind up the yarn using a special tool called a yarn winder. This ensures that the yarn used to create the rugs is well organized and will not become tangled during the tufting process, preventing hours of potential stoppage. Afterwards, a thick rubber backing is added for nonslip precaution.
Customers can choose to purchase one of Sandoval’s own designs, or can opt for a customized rug by sending in a design of their own. Examples of these designs are Pokeballs which follow a more traditional circle shape, celebrities like Post Malone, which use many different colors in an unconventional shape, and psychedelic rugs that pop out and have a splatter-like look. One customer states that “his work speaks for himself” and that Sandoval’s online presence promotes himself as “hardworking, professional, and reliable.”
A local artist known as freshbiscuits_ on Instagram, who makes “art for emotionally sensitive people”, spoke up about Sandoval’s art and how it visually is making fast headway. “He likes to push his creativity and explore innovative ways to display the rug medium.”
He has also created rugs which start as mirrors, by using their border as a canvas for the design, creating a modern style home decor piece.
A smaller rug depicting a batman logo on Sandoval’s website is listed as $80, while the larger and more time consuming projects cost up to $450. Any custom orders’ price will depend on the size and sometimes color palette.
The limits of what Sandoval can do don’t leave much to be desired, with the occasional rug being 5 feet in length. The entire process from start to finish takes about two to three weeks, depending on how many orders are active and the rugs’ size.
“He’s grown across the board. I wanna say his biggest thing now is consistency, he’s on it every day. Self Improvement, practicing, he’s on his iPad drawing something at least a couple hours a day,” said Scott Lariosa, friend of Sandoval.
With sturdy grounds in his business and a steady rise in the popularity of custom rugs, it’s only a matter of time before we all have our favorite designs in our homes.
