The Cutting Season – a Toledo leather collection, Volume I-C
From the Practice Log – Volume I-C of an ongoing series of independent leather studies.
An August study.
The Cutting Season – five stamps for Toledo and the Maumee corridor. Toledo grew up on glass and on the river, and the flower rows still run along the river road out past the metroparks. We pressed that world into leather.
First, we drew the Maumee as one long meandering line, with a cutting row standing on the far bank, and set ALONG THE MAUMEE beneath the water. The design is wide, so it runs lengthwise along the luggage tags.
Looks great when stamped onto the leather.
Next, a mason jar of cut stems over the words GLASS CITY, the jar drawn in open line so the stems show through the glass. Toledo will know why. We pressed it into the lower corner of the toiletry bags, warm tan over chestnut.
Then a coin for the keys: one zinnia ringed by APRIL TO NOVEMBER, the months the flower rows stand open. The keys go along all year; the fob keeps the dates. It comes in warm red and in deep green.
For the catchall tray, one bloom drawn large as a specimen plate, with ONE OF EIGHTY beneath – the rows along the river run past eighty varieties, and no two jars leave them alike.
It looks genuinely beautiful.
And finally, the one we liked the most. A flower pressed flat under a strip of paper tape, with WORTH KEEPING set beneath – pressing a petal between pages is the oldest way of keeping a day, and a journal does the same work in ink. On pale rose, and on the pale warm greige of archive paper.
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 these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.