Great Cow Harbor × Leatherius Woodman – a Northport leather stamping study

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

An August study.

Northport is a village built on a slope – Main Street runs downhill until it turns into a harbor, and the old trolley rails still point the way to the water. This August we pressed that geography into leather and called the collection Great Cow Harbor, after the name the water has carried since cattle grazed its banks.

First, the flagship. We stood a cow in the shallows among the moored sailboats, calm as a registered member of the fleet, and set the old name beneath her.

Black-and-white Cow at Anchor stamp artwork for the Great Cow Harbor leather collection of Northport, New York.

It looks genuinely beautiful.

Three leather luggage tags stamped with Cow at Anchor, from the Great Cow Harbor collection of Northport, New York.

Next, a keychain for anyone who ever folded a paper boat and watched it go. FIRST VOYAGE – because every keel the old shipyards laid down started this small. One fob in pale sea-blue, one in warm tan.

Black-and-white First Voyage stamp artwork for the Great Cow Harbor leather collection of Northport, New York.

Two leather keychains stamped with First Voyage, from the Great Cow Harbor collection of Northport, New York.

Then the bandstand down in the harbor park, where the village still gathers on summer evenings. We pressed MEET AT THE BANDSTAND into the corner of the toiletry bags – weathered gray over chestnut, like shingle over dock wood.

Black-and-white Meet at the Bandstand stamp artwork for the Great Cow Harbor leather collection of Northport, New York.

Two leather toiletry bags stamped with Meet at the Bandstand, from the Great Cow Harbor collection of Northport, New York.

Then the tray. A catchall works the way a harbor does – by nightfall, everything ends up in it. So we ringed those words around a dinghy riding at its mooring and pressed the medallion into the base of a golden tan tray.

Black-and-white Everything Ends Up at the Harbor stamp artwork for the Great Cow Harbor leather collection of Northport, New York.

Looks great when stamped onto the leather.

An arizona leather catchall tray stamped with Everything Ends Up at the Harbor, from the Great Cow Harbor collection of Northport, New York.

And finally, the oldest name of all. The village's first name, Opcathontyche, is translated in its own histories as wading place creek – and a journal is entered the same way, by wading in. A heron waits in the reeds in the corner of each cover, in deep green and in pale greige.

Black-and-white The Wading Place stamp artwork for the Great Cow Harbor leather collection of Northport, New York.

Two leather journals stamped with The Wading Place, from the Great Cow Harbor collection of Northport, New York.

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 these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.

P.S.

A navy leather luggage tag stamped with Cow at Anchor, from the Great Cow Harbor collection of Northport, New York.

A gray-sand leather luggage tag stamped with Cow at Anchor, from the Great Cow Harbor collection of Northport, New York.

A poppy-red leather luggage tag stamped with Cow at Anchor, from the Great Cow Harbor collection of Northport, New York.

A pale sea-blue leather keychain stamped with First Voyage, from the Great Cow Harbor collection of Northport, New York.

A caramel leather keychain stamped with First Voyage, from the Great Cow Harbor collection of Northport, New York.

A forest-green leather journal stamped with The Wading Place, from the Great Cow Harbor collection of Northport, New York.

A gray-sand leather journal stamped with The Wading Place, from the Great Cow Harbor collection of Northport, New York.