PS Retreats × Leatherius Woodman – a leather stamping study
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world marks.
An August study.
PS Retreats is an annual, multi-day retreat for women, presented by PS Society under a line we kept returning to all week: “Where transformation takes root.” The photograph on their site shows what that means in practice – around eighteen women gathered beneath a stone footbridge in a wooded hollow, several in matching pale-blush shirts whose green lettering reads “BALANCE & BLOOM.” The organization says plainly that “belonging heals,” and calls connection “a prescription for wellness.” That is a rare thing to say out loud, and a rarer thing to build a calendar around.
The days themselves are made of facilitated workshops and mindfulness, of creative reflection and structured time with other women. Journaling and letter writing sit near the center of it all. So when we sat down to press their name into leather, we had an unusual advantage: one of our objects, the journal, belonged to their practice before we ever arrived.
The mark, as found
The program’s public face is set in type: PS RETREATS, plain capitals on the page. We transcribed it letter by letter and pressed it exactly as it stands, because a study should begin with what exists. Plain type takes a deboss surprisingly well; the press gives even a quiet name a shadow and a floor.
The mark this study proposes
Their own words gave us the drawing. “Where transformation takes root” asks for roots, so we grew the whole mark from them: a young tree in bloom stands above the ground line, and below it the roots spread and weave through one another – then the two outermost roots keep going, sweeping up and around to become the ring that encloses the mark. The circle holding the tree is grown by the tree. At the top, the two root-tips meet in a pair of small leaves, and PS RETREATS sits on a gentle arc beneath the interlace.
We did wonder whether the weave would still read as roots at corner-stamp scale. It softens into texture there, and we decided to let it – a circle that rewards a second look suits a program about slow growth.
Pressed
The journals came first, because PS Reflects had already put journals in these women’s hands. The duo is pale rose and deep green – the pairing the retreat itself wears, green lettering on pale-blush shirts, carried into leather. The mark sits generous in the lower right corner of each front panel, pressed blind, tone on tone.
The way there and home
A retreat is also a journey, so the traveling pieces follow. The luggage tags stand upright, in pale rose and dusty rose, with a third tag in deep green for the woods around the hollow. The passport covers pair dusty rose with a warm stone gray we chose for the footbridge overhead in their photograph. Everything in this set is pressed blind, without foil, because nothing about this brand shouts.
Carried every day
The keychains take the mark at fob scale, in deep green and dusty rose, the ring of roots resting just below the brass ring that carries the keys – a small rhyme we enjoyed.
The dopp kits stack warm stone gray over deep espresso brown, stone over earth, with the mark small in the lower right corner of each front face.
A place to put things down
A retreat begins when daily obligations are set aside, and the catchall tray does that literally at the end of each day. Ours comes in golden tan, which photographs a shade brighter than it sits in the hand, and takes the full mark at generous scale in its base.
Balance & Bloom
The shirts in the photograph earned a design of their own. From a small tuft of roots a single stem rises and divides into two mirrored arcs, level as the beam of a hand balance; the left arc ends in an open blossom, the right in a closed bud. The symmetry carries the balance, and the two states of the flower carry the bloom – what has opened, held level with what is still to open. The words run beneath in spaced capitals.
We pressed it on a single pale rose journal, the shirt color itself, where the phrase can sit quietly with whoever is writing.
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're PS Retreats and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.