Come Up for Air – a leather stamping study from Flowood, Mississippi
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of original leather stamping studies.
A September study. Volume II.
Come Up for Air is a small leather collection for Flowood, Mississippi – named for the bird on the reservoir that hunts its fish underwater and often swims with just its head and neck above the surface.
First, that bird. Swimming, the anhinga often keeps its body under and shows the lake a periscope neck and a pointed bill – we drew exactly that much of it, rising off its own ripples, and set COME UP FOR AIR beneath the waterline.
It looks genuinely beautiful.
The keychains run navy and pale sea-blue, the deep and the pale blues of the water around the bird in our reference photograph. On the toiletry bags – navy stacked over deep espresso, the surface and the dark under it – the same stamp sits in each lower corner, packed for a weekend of exactly that.
Next, the old river. The cypress swamp at milepost 122 of the Natchez Trace stands in an abandoned channel of the Pearl – the river moved on, the trees stayed. We ran the flared trunks and their knees down the length of the tag and let the reflection part midwater around OLD PEARL, our name for the river's former self.
The tags run deep green for the canopy and warm tan for the trunks; the third is pale warm greige, for flat water under an overcast sky.
Then, the boardwalk. In the swamp it curves off between the swollen trunks until the trees close around it – we drew it head-on, rails and all, and set GO AND SEE beneath. A journal is the thing you carry when you take the instruction.
Looks great when stamped onto the leather.
And finally, the flower the whole state signs with. We opened a magnolia a little past full – broad white petals around the seed cone – ringed it in its own glossy leaves and set MISSISSIPPI on an arc beneath. On the golden tan catchall tray it waits by the door, and the keys land in the bloom.
We made this out of love. Leatherius Woodman is on a mission to create and share artifacts of beauty, craft and love – this study is one of them, and we hope the feeling is mutual. Every image is a render – how we prototype before cutting a die.
If you'd like any of these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.
P.S.
