The Way Home – a Tuscaloosa leather collection

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

A August study.

The Way Home is a small leather collection rooted in Tuscaloosa, Alabama – five stamps drawn from the Black Warrior River and the water oaks of Druid City. Luggage tags for the leaving, journals for what happens next.

First, the river. We let one line wander through a river's bends and then straighten into a front walk that ends at a lit doorway – THE RIVER KNOWS THE WAY HOME. It travels on pale sea-blue and blush. The black tag carries the design in gold.

The river-to-door stamp design for THE WAY HOME leather collection of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Three leather luggage tags stamped with a Black Warrior River line becoming the way home, from THE WAY HOME collection of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Next, Druid City as the oaks would write it. We drew a century of growth rings and ran the Black Warrior clean through them, then pressed the mark small into the corner of the toiletry bags – caramel over chestnut, the colors of oak heartwood.

The Druid City growth-ring and river stamp design for THE WAY HOME leather collection of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Two leather toiletry bags stamped with Druid City oak rings and river current, from THE WAY HOME collection of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Then the acorn, which is how an oak wraps a gift. CITY OF OAKS sits beneath it, and the keychains wear forest green and caramel.

Keychains with the acorn stamp look just awesome.

The acorn and CITY OF OAKS stamp design for THE WAY HOME leather collection of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Forest-green and caramel leather keychains stamped with an acorn and CITY OF OAKS, from THE WAY HOME collection of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

After that, the oldest map in town. When Tuscaloosa was first surveyed, the riverbank served as First Street and the young grid bent to follow the water – so we drew the current with the streets leaning after it, and gave THE RIVER WAS FIRST STREET the whole golden-tan base of the catchall tray, the dish your pockets empty into when you make it home.

It looks genuinely beautiful.

The river-first street-grid stamp design for THE WAY HOME leather collection of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

An Arizona leather catchall tray stamped with Tuscaloosa's river-first street grid, from THE WAY HOME collection of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

And finally, the columns. Tuscaloosa kept the state capital for twenty years, and Capitol Park still holds the columns that remember it. We set TWENTY YEARS A CAPITAL into the corner of the journals, 1826 at one end of the ground line and 1846 at the other, because what gets written down outlasts the building it was written in. The journals come in deep wine and in pale greige, the color of the park's limestone.

The TWENTY YEARS A CAPITAL column stamp design for THE WAY HOME leather collection of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Sangria and gray-sand leather journals stamped with Capitol Park columns, from THE WAY HOME collection of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

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