The Water Came – an Othello, Washington leather collection

From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world logos.

An August study.

Othello, Washington farmed dry ground for half a century, and the lament here ran, "If only we had water, this soil would grow anything." In 1953 the canals arrived and the Columbia Basin bloomed. We pressed that story into leather – tags, journals and so on – and called the collection The Water Came.

First, the namesake die. A single canal falls through the middle of a field: on one side the furrows lie bare, and on the other the same furrows break into wild roses. The old lament arches over the top, and beneath it stands the answer – THE WATER CAME.

It looks genuinely beautiful.

The Water Came stamp design from the namesake leather collection of Othello, Washington.

We pressed it generously across the golden-tan catchall tray, and into the corner of the toiletry bags – navy riding over chestnut, canal water over field earth.

A golden tan leather catchall tray stamped with The Water Came design from the Othello, Washington collection.

Navy and chestnut leather toiletry bags stamped with The Water Came design from the Othello, Washington collection.

Next, the cranes. Tens of thousands of sandhill cranes drop into the fields around Othello every March on their way north, and the whole town turns out to watch. We set three of them descending toward a stand of blooming stems, over the words EVERY MARCH – a stamp for whatever reliably comes back.

The Every March crane stamp design from The Water Came leather collection of Othello, Washington.

On the luggage tags the design runs lengthwise, in warm crane gray and golden wheat tan, with a navy third standing in for the wetlands.

Three leather luggage tags stamped with returning sandhill cranes from The Water Came collection of Othello, Washington.

The keychains land in warm gray and pale rose. Looks great when stamped onto the leather.

Warm gray and pale rose leather keychains stamped Every March from The Water Came collection of Othello, Washington.

And finally, the journals. Furrow rows run to the horizon, and at the vanishing point a single rose stands where a rising sun would be, over WHAT THE SOIL REMEMBERED. A journal is soil too – what gets written down comes up later. One in deep field green, one in warm basin tan.

The What the Soil Remembered stamp design from The Water Came leather collection of Othello, Washington.

Deep green and warm tan leather journals stamped What the Soil Remembered from The Water Came collection of Othello, Washington.

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 in Othello and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.