Eleven Lakes & Nineteen Falls – a leather collection for Elmira Heights
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on leather.
A September study – Volume I-A.
For Elmira Heights, and for the water-carved country around it, pressed into leather.
First, we drew the eleven lakes as they actually lie, west to east, each keeping its true shape – Keuka holds onto its fork – above THE FINGER LAKES in plain capitals.
On the luggage tags it stands upright – pale sea-blue for the water, deep green for the hills between.
Black carries the gold – the one leather that takes the foil pass.
The same lakes ride a warm tan keychain. Looks great when stamped onto the leather.
Next, Watkins Glen. We layered the gorge walls stratum by stratum and hung the curtain waterfall on the left, the watercourse winding back to the little stone bridge – with NINETEEN WATERFALLS beneath, the park's honest count.
On the journals it sits in the lower right corner – warm gray close to the gorge stone itself, deep green for the moss on its walls.
Across the golden tan of the catchall tray it runs at full size. Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the leather.
Then, for the toiletry bag, vineyard rows running downhill to a sliver of lake – RIESLING COUNTRY, which is what the wine trails around Seneca and Keuka amount to. We pressed it blind into the honeyed russet of the stack, low in the corner where a stamp belongs.
And finally, the one we grinned at the most – a rainbow trout mid-leap against the little falls, headed the hard way, over the single word UPSTREAM. Catharine Creek's spring run does exactly this every year.
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.
