The Rawhide Survey – a Las Cruces, New Mexico leather stamping study

From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of leather stamping studies.

An August study.

In 1849 the first townsite of Las Cruces, New Mexico was measured out with a rawhide rope – eighty-four blocks, drawn in leather before a single one was built in adobe. We took that as an invitation. The Rawhide Survey is a small leather collection that measures the town again, one stamp at a time.

First, the rope itself. One length of rawhide measured the whole town, so we bent that length into the numeral 84 – the count of the first blocks – and let its free end trail into a coil where the measuring stopped. We pressed it at full size into the base of a golden-tan catchall tray, so whatever you empty from your pockets lands somewhere downtown.

It looks beautiful at that size.

Black-and-white rope-number stamp art for The Rawhide Survey leather collection of Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Golden-tan leather catchall tray stamped with the rope-drawn 84 from The Rawhide Survey collection of Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Next, the skyline the whole valley checks without thinking. We cut the Organ Needles into a long line for the luggage tags, with EAST TO THE ORGANS in the sky – the direction home reads from anywhere. Two of the trio keep the mountains' daylight hours, a pale greige noon and a dusty-lavender evening.

The third tag is night – true black, and it takes the stamp in gold, like last light on the needles.

Black-and-white Organ Mountains stamp art for The Rawhide Survey leather collection of Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Gray-sand, lilac and black leather luggage tags stamped with the Organ Mountains from The Rawhide Survey collection of Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Then the question every table in the valley hears. The die says RED OR GREEN with a single chile hanging between the words, and the leather gives the answer – one fob in warm red, one in deep green. When the answer is Christmas, you carry both.

They look just awesome side by side.

Black-and-white chile stamp art for The Rawhide Survey leather collection of Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Poppy-red and forest-green leather keychains stamped with a Mesilla Valley chile from The Rawhide Survey collection of Las Cruces, New Mexico.

For the journals, the acequia madre – the mother ditch that draws a green ribbon through desert ground. A ruled page does the same quiet work, so the channel winds through the cover's corner with cottonwood leaves along its banks. One journal in deep green, one in pale greige: the ribbon, and the ground it crosses.

Black-and-white acequia stamp art for The Rawhide Survey leather collection of Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Forest-green and pale gray-sand leather journals stamped with an acequia and cottonwood leaves from The Rawhide Survey collection of Las Cruces, New Mexico.

And finally, Dripping Springs, the old camp in the Organs where water falls out of dry rock. A toiletry bag seemed the right place to keep a spring. The stamp sits small in the corner of a two-bag stack, warm mid-gray over deep espresso brown – canyon stone over mountain shadow.

Black-and-white Dripping Springs stamp art for The Rawhide Survey leather collection of Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Honeyed-russet and dark-espresso leather toiletry bags stamped with the Dripping Springs route from The Rawhide Survey collection of Las Cruces, New Mexico.

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.