The Palouse Cut – leather studies of the rolling Palouse, Moscow, Idaho
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of leather stamping studies.
A September study. Volume I-A.
The Palouse Cut is a small collection of leather goods – luggage tags and journals among them – for the rolling hill country around Moscow, Idaho. Every design is carved in the language of the block print, because a stamp and a woodcut are the same act: a carved surface, pressed.
First, we cut the hills the way a printmaker cuts water – three swells running the length of the tag, solid black on the shadowed flank and white carved lines riding each crest, with A SEA OF HILLS set into the sky.
It looks genuinely beautiful – here on deep green and golden tan.
The black tag carries the design in gold.
Next, a single standing head of wheat, cut white-line style – the kernels are carver's marks left open in the black – with PALOUSE beneath.
On the black fob the wheat goes down in gold; on warm tan it presses plain and deep.
The same wheat sits low in the corner of the toiletry bags, honeyed russet over deep espresso – harvest over turned earth.
And finally, the one we liked the most. These hills are loess – silt the wind piled into dunes, which the grass then caught and held. So we let the wind draw them: long carved strokes come in from the left and harden, stroke by stroke, into the hills themselves, above the words THE WIND BUILT THESE HILLS.
Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the leather.
On the journals it sits low in the right corner – one in pale warm greige, one in deep green.
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.
P.S.
