My Story

Scrappy Carp got it's name for all the reasons listed above but but what is Scrappy Carp Designs? Scrappy Carp is a newly hatched Surface and Textile adventure. I want to combine my years of practical craft, design and art education into a company that's focus is on the love of good design.  You can read my story or skip to the end to get the synopsis. 

At a very young age, I knew I was an artist but had no idea what that meant. I thought to be an artist you had to have your pictures in an art gallery- yes I had designs on that at age 4. I still remember the picture I drew that I was going to 'hang' in a little community gallery. It was a picture of my Mother (with frizzy hair- 80's bad perm & a striped shirt) and my dad (with a beard), sadly I don't know what happened to this drawing but to me it was the most fabulous thing in the world.

I also wanted to make clothes from a very young age, being to small to operate a sewing machine my mum used to hand draw paper dolls for me, that I would create outfits for. Later in years when I could take Home Ec, I took as many sewing classes as I could. I fell in love with not only fashion but also fabric.

I eventually went to art school and got my BFA from Emily Carr University (then Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design) focussing not in design, or drawing/painting but ceramics! I got the fine craft bug. Four years of ceramics and not one perfect pot! But it wasn't about that, it was about the process, about doing a job and doing better the next time and the time after that.

My ceramic/art education (though I squeaked by and graduated) came to an abrupt end with pregnancy. Though I had it all planned out- I was going to have my baby months after the final Grad and Graduation show, i got news as I was loading a gas kiln that I was having twins. At 20 weeks I went on bed rest, missing both Grad show ( though I think I had help installing something- can't remember what it was, my mind was on other things) and Graduation ceremonies. I got one more shot at it the following year, they made an exception and let me redo my last studio class and I got to be in the Grad show, this time with a full body of work that caught the attention of a local gallery that had an Emerging Artist show each year!

Yay me... I was on my way! Nope not quite. Those babies that interrupted my last year of school sucked just about all of the ambition out of me. And I became a domestic. No art, nothing...  Just head down, getting through the days. My Husband was in grad School and I was a stay at home mum, just trying to keep going. I didn't notice how unhappy I was or how unhappy my husband was and we had a wake up call- a strain on our marriage and we knew we had a choice to make- we now had infant twins, Shit or get off the pot. I started drawing more, I started cooking more, I started sewing again, and though it wasn't easy I started being happier. 

Since then I have pushed all those skills as far as I can take them- do I go back to becoming a full time artist? A chef? A Seamstress? My Husband now graduated and working in his field has to go to where the jobs are. We have moved countries, moved states from one side to the other and we honestly know that territory comes with his profession and are fully excepting that it may happen again as his career changes and grows. So where does that leave me?

And now we get to the real reason of Why  Scrappy Carp Designs and what is it.... I don't know if I am leaving the house anytime soon.. My husband and I consciously chose to chase his career for very specific reasons, leaving me as a stay at home mum for for a while longer, thus making me redundant in the working world. Luckily I am stubborn and refuse to believe that my worth is only that of my job title. I started looking at all the things I was/am doing and how they relate, quite frankly it was there in front of me for a long time.

Have you have ever picked up a hand thrown mug and ran your fingers over the surface and felt the tactility, or stared mesmerized at tiles trying to figure out just where it the pattern begins and ends or drape a piece of fabric and watched how the pattern shifts to reveal a new one? My love of fabric, design, surface, texture- I never dreamed in a million years that Surface Designer was a job but it so makes sense for me. Scrappy Carp Designs is that love and passion. My Aim, my Goal is to design textiles and surface for living be it for a professional company or home sewer that is looking for originality, quality and a little playfulness.

Megan H Carroll