Bo Shilkey (’17) Has It in the Bag

Montserrat alum Bo Shilkey knows how to keep herself busy.

“I pushed a snowball down a hill and I’m still chasing it.”

Since graduating in 2017, Shilkey has been a Co-Executive Director, a certified repair technician for industrial sewing machines, and the owner of a new art education company. Now Shilkey has “gotten the bag” in a very literal sense. They are the new owner and operator for the New Hampshire manufacturing company BaileyWorks. 

The Northampton, NH-based business is most famous for its “TT Hip Bag” bicycle bags, touting its status as “the first company to make a bag that hangs on a bicycle frame.” All the manufacturing for the company is done in the US–including the fabric, buckles, and clasps the company sources for production.

Shilkey originally heard about the company sale through Montserrat’s Career Center. At the time, she was working for Pelletier Awning in Beverly, having recently acquired a certification to repair industrial sewing machines, which only a small number of people in the nation are qualified to fix. Simultaneously she was running her art education businesses, Calloused Hands Studio and working to open a maker’s space in Beverly above Backbeat Brewing on Park Street in Beverly. 

“I looked at BaileyWorks and thought ‘80% of this is something I can handle.’ Especially producing the product–I can physically do the labor.”

With the sale recently finalized, Shilkey is now hard at work updating the website and making plans for the company’s future. She plans to widen the selection of bags offered, and is particularly excited about designing a line with wheelchair users and other people with disabilities in mind.

“I would love to add a disability line. I would love to see us making bags from people for wheelchairs and power scooters who have medical equipment. Often, they don’t have durable bags because medical equipment bags are usually awful. We have all seen the backpack hanging off the back of a wheelchair. That is not an accessible bag.”

Shilkey would know: before hearing about BaileyWorks she’d needed to take months off of work to recover from a major back surgery. It was partly this break from the physical labor of sewing and awning construction that inspired her to explore other endeavors. It was idle conversation with Paul Gentile of Gentile Brewing in Beverly that got the snowball rolling on the Makers’ Space project, which subsequently put Shilkey in contact with the Brickyard Collaborative in Lynn, where she served as Co-Executive Director.

As for where to go from here, she has no shortage of ideas.

“I would love to see us do more. I have a friend who would like us to make radio bags. And bags for fencers! There’s no good fencing bag out there for your rapier and your dagger. For the most part, everyone uses rifle bags and those are obviously not meant for swords… we presently wholesale internationally to a company in Japan. I’d like to explore an additional company in Korea… I would love to see us expand.”

Keep up with Bo Shilkey at callousedhandsstudio.com and baileyworks.com