The Ground Remembers – a leather stamping collection of dinosaur tracks and trace fossils

From the Shops Waterfall – Volume I-B, an original collection.

A September study.

The Ground Remembers – a small collection about trace fossils, the marks a living animal leaves behind. A bone can say what an animal was; a footprint catches it in the middle of doing something, one ordinary morning in the Early Jurassic. We pressed that kind of evidence into leather.

First, we drew a single Grallator track – the small three-toed footprint these stories usually start with – and set its name beneath it in plain capitals, like the label in a collection drawer.

Black-and-white stamp artwork of a three-toed Grallator track above the word GRALLATOR for The Ground Remembers collection.

It looks great when stamped onto the leather – once in golden tan, once in warm red.

An Arizona golden-tan leather keychain blind-stamped with a Grallator track and its name.

A Poppy Red leather keychain blind-stamped with a Grallator track and its name.

Next, the luggage tags. We set a trackway walking the length of the tag, and where the next footprint should land, the words STILL GOING PLACES take the step instead.

Black-and-white stamp artwork of four walking dinosaur tracks leading into the words STILL GOING PLACES.

We ran it across golden tan and navy, then a warm mid-gray like wet stone.

An Arizona golden-tan leather luggage tag blind-stamped with dinosaur tracks and STILL GOING PLACES.

A Blueberry navy leather luggage tag blind-stamped with dinosaur tracks and STILL GOING PLACES.

A Country Gray leather luggage tag blind-stamped with dinosaur tracks and STILL GOING PLACES.

Then, the toiletry bags – because this is where the swimmers go. Some dinosaurs crossed the ancient lake with their claws just grazing the bottom, and the long scratches they left are how science knows. We pressed those claw marks into the corner of the bag under a plain specimen label, EVIDENCE OF SWIMMING.

Black-and-white specimen-label stamp artwork of three sets of swimming traces above EVIDENCE OF SWIMMING.

Navy above, chestnut below – water over lakebed. Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the leather.

Blueberry navy and Sicilian Brown leather toiletry bags blind-stamped with EVIDENCE OF SWIMMING trace labels.

The catchall tray got the weather. Rain fell on soft mud one Early Jurassic day, the pits dried in, and the ground kept them – so we gave the tray its ripple marks and raindrop craters, with ONE RAINY DAY IN THE EARLY JURASSIC set around the lower rim. A tray collects whatever the day drops into it; it seemed right.

Black-and-white circular stamp artwork of ripple marks and raindrop impressions titled ONE RAINY DAY IN THE EARLY JURASSIC.

An Arizona golden-tan leather catchall tray blind-stamped with Early Jurassic ripple and raindrop marks.

And finally, the journals. Every fossil on record was found because somebody asked the ground a question, so the cover corner carries a question mark whose dot is a footprint, with one thought beneath it – EVERY DISCOVERY BEGINS WITH A QUESTION.

Black-and-white stamp artwork of a question mark ending in a dinosaur track above EVERY DISCOVERY BEGINS WITH A QUESTION.

Two journals – one deep brown, one pale warm greige like a stone page waiting for notes.

A Dark Espresso leather journal blind-stamped with the question-mark track design from The Ground Remembers.

A Gray Sand leather journal blind-stamped with the question-mark track design from The Ground Remembers.

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.