gallery ::: Santa Morgie Designs

width=238px&float=right&galleryID=6

Morgen Parkin….

Santa Morgie Designs.

Santa Morgie Designs is a one-woman show staring Morgen Parkin from the Comox Valley, Vancouver Island, Canada. Morgen designs hand crafted vinyl bags with intricate designs of robots, kitties in spaceships, flaming toasters, wrenches, scooters and whatever oddities come to mind.

The very cool thing about Morgen’s entrepreneurial experience is that she learns her lessons fast and stays versatile. For this reason, she focuses on the creation side of her work and lets the product speak for itself. 

Wallfarmers: How did you get into doing this…sewing bags and such?
Morgen: My grandma taught me and I made little bags and stuff with her as a kid. When I got older, I was doing this as a hobby when I was still working as a bookkeeper. I guess the turning point was when I made a diaper bag for my cousin who had twins.  I made her a monster diaper bag and I thought it was pretty clever.  So that was the first bag I made when I thought ‘This could be the start of something’. 
That was about a year or two before I started the business, also around the same time  when Jody (Morgen’s husband) started Dirt Circus. (Dirt Circus was a zine based around local mountain bike culture)
 



Wallfarmers: So you were making and selling bags as well as producing stickers and working on the zine with Jody?
Morgen: As soon as I graduated art school (Emily Carr), art was the last thing I wanted to do, but I knew that there would always be a creative element in my life.
It was really neat when Jody was doing the zine because it was another outlet and I could use my print making skills when we did the stickers and stuff like that. 

When I ended up leaving my job on stress leave, it ended up that I was so busy that there was just no time for the creative stuff. I probably hadn’t even made a bag in about a year because I had taken a really central roll in the firm that I was working in.  So, when I left, I didn’t think this would be a full-time job, but that would be ideal.

Wallfarmers: Then you got back into making your bags for production?
Morgen: Yeah, well it was September 2006 and I decided to enter in the local Colours Festival with a friend Tara Griffith ( Tara is a textile designer, formerly from the Comox Valley ). I had helped Tara with the Filberg Festival that year and it inspired me to start working on my bags again.

Wallfarmers: I know you now have several different types of bags, but how long would it take you to make, say, the diaper bag?
Morgen: When I first started, the diaper bag would take me 8 hours from start to finish. I’m sure it doesn’t take me that long now because it’s more like a production line. I will sew a bunch of Velcro on things then straps and labels.



Wallfarmers: How many bags do you think you could make in a month?
Morgen: If I was working full out, full-time, I’d like to think that I could make probably 30 bags. But I can’t really work full out any more because I developed tendinitis pretty much right away because I had gone from not having sewn for a long time to full production. It’s actually a lot more physical than you might think.

  

Wallfarmers: Oh no! So how do you deal with that?
Morgen: Well, I go to massage and stuff but mostly, I probably just don’t deal with it.  I have had help with cutting and stuff; I find that the cutting motion makes it worse, so my mom sometimes helps on the weekends.



Wallfarmers: What was the first design that you created?
Morgen: The first bag I did was a robot bag. It’s kind of funny because I make a lot of robot bags now, it’s my favorite thing to do.  I started getting a lot of requests from friends…I think the next bag I made was a goldfish.

Wallfarmers: What are your favorite designs?
Morgen: Definitely the Robot then Rocket Kitty and the Flaming Toaster.  Those are kind of my trade signature things.

I have found that most people don’t have a visual memory for unique items, well, artists do but most people will see the robot and say ‘oh, that’s Bender or Wall-E’, which is funny because a lot of my robots pre-date Wall-E. I don’t think they look anything like that but that’s what people reference them to.  All of them are different, there are no two the same and they all have their distinct personality, that’s what I like about them.



Wallfarmers: How many different pieces do you make…bags and such?
Morgen: Oh, at least 9 different bags. Then there is the luggage tags, magnets and wall art.

Wallfarmers: The wall art is a pretty cool thing to throw in there, do you like creating them as oppose to the bags?
Morgen: What I like about the wall art is that I can be working away on luggage tags and bags then totally shift gears, which is good because when I get sick of laptop bags, I can take a design I like and just do a wall piece. 



Wallfarmers: Do you have a favorite bag or piece that you make?
Morgen: I don’t know, I guess the diaper bags. I think they are the coolest bag that I make because they are unlike anything out there, in my opinion. Some people say they see other bags that are similar but I’ve never seen them.  I like that they are vinyl and adding the contrasting colours as well.
Sometimes I don’t like making them because they are so involved, but at the same time, that’s what is so rewarding.  And it’s so cool to see how people react to them as well.  That is the other aspect of all of this. Just doing the shows and getting the feedback because I spend a lot of time as a hermit here in my sweatshop, so it’s fun to see people react to it all.

Wallfarmers: Are there any new designs that you are coming up with?
Morgen: Well, a lot of the new designs come from the custom orders. People request some pretty fun stuff. There was one with a hamster that turned out pretty cute. That is part of the fun in all of this because I like the challenge of creating new things.   I’ve had a lot of fun working on the lobsters…and also the accordion because it’s so intricate.



Wallfarmers: You were in the One-Of-A-Kind show in Vancouver, how was that for you?
Morgen: It was incredible! It was a Toronto based show that is really well established in Chicago and Toronto so this was their first time in Vancouver. I’ve never been in a show where people were so positive.  I do the Filberg Festival and half the people tell me that I’m too expensive and don’t look at the pieces really. They think I’m printing on them or something, they don’t realize that it’s all stitching.   But this show was 95% of the people going ‘WOW!’.  With that, I know I’m not going to sell a piece to all of these people but at least they are taking the time to appreciate the effort you put out.
The quality of the art at that show was incredible and there was stuff from all over North America. The show was also very well presented.

Wallfarmers: Was that show successful in sales for you too?
Morgen: Definitely my best show for sales to-date!



Wallfarmers: After the success of One-Of-A-Kind, will it be hard for you to go back to the Filberg?
Morgen: Well, I don’t plan on going back to the Filberg, but not because of that show. I began doing the Filberg Show because my dad did it when I was younger. He would work and I would do sales and it used to be so cool, but so much has changed since then. Other than the politics behind a show like that, for the energy I put out, I’m not sure if it really pays off for me in the end.

Wallfarmers: How many trade shows or craft fairs do you participate in a year?
Morgen: This year I did 7 shows. I think I did more last year but this year I tried to do fewer but bigger shows and next year I think I’m just going to do one. Yeah, just the One-of-a-Kind show in Vancouver. I’m scaling back next year.



Wallfarmers: I guess you’re probably busy enough with stores and custom orders?
Morgen: Oh, no, I’m scaling back a devastating percentage! The thing is that I have to make inventory to have at these shows and then I sell just a small percentage. I have these custom orders but it gets frustrating when I have all this stock from the show but all the sales are from custom work.
I’ve been doing this for two years and everyone is saying ‘oh, you’re just getting started’, and I know that but the challenge is that a lot of people don’t want to buy your stuff until it’s ‘known’ or mainstream.
I will continue to do this but it’s hard because I’ve put everything into this and now I have to step back a bit from it.


Wallfarmers: And what about the wall art?
Morgen: I had to stop doing them because the smaller stuff and the bags have been what people want. I would, at some point, like to do large-scale art imagery.

Wallfarmers: And tell me about these serious sewing machines you have here.
Morgen: 2 years ago I was working on Christmas orders and my other sewing machine broke down so I ended up getting this one.
This machine has really upped my game. It’s just another tool but it has made be better because of that. I can definitely see the progression in my work and I thought I would get to the point where I would just be as good as I am, period. But still, I can see improvements all the time.

 

Wallfarmers: So you see this machine as a way to define your skill and see where it takes you?
Morgen: Yeah, like the images that I have been working with lately are these antlers and this cool brown velvet moose. It’s been great working with these different fabrics on the machine as well.  
Lately I’ve just been trying to produce the stuff that I’m interested in. I’ve tried doing the more abstract stuff but when you put one of those pieces next to a piece where they can’t believe you’ve done that on a sewing machine, they kind of forget about the abstract one.

Wallfarmers: Do you ever spend the day in your sweatshop rocking out and having a beer while you work?
Morgen: *laughs…maybe I should!  I listen to the radio, CBC, and I’ve developed an unhealthy obsession with soap operas.

Wallfarmers: Wait, that’s not rocking out!
Morgen: No, it’s been pretty funny though because I just put them on in the background and hear stuff going on. Now I could take it or leave it but I found out that my cousin watches the same soap so now we gossip about what’s going on.

Wallfarmers: Any last words?
Morgen: I’m just really glad that I’ve been able to do this. I will always make stuff, no matter what. You know, when I talk about that this could be the end, well, probably not but it could be the beginning of something totally different.
When I started this, I was at a turning point when I had to decide to stay with printmaking or do this and this seemed less scary.
The art is primary, the function is important but the art is what it’s all about.
Retro-sci-fi and things that are funny. I like things that are just a little weird.