Ridge & Hollow – a Springdale, Arkansas leather stamping collection, Volume III
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of leather stamping studies.
An August study – Volume III.
Ridge & Hollow is the third leather collection we have designed for Springdale, Arkansas – five original stamps for the town between the Boston Mountains and the Springfield Plateau, pressed into luggage tags, keychains, toiletry bags, a catchall tray and journals.
First, the lay of the land. Springdale sits in a dale between the Boston Mountains and the Springfield Plateau, so we drew the whole horizon onto one stamp – peaks on one end and tableland on the other, with a star over the low ground where the town is. A luggage tag's whole job is saying where home is.
The horizon runs lengthwise along the tag, in deep green, warm tan and true black. The black tag carries it in gold.
Next, the nickname. When poultry became the town's fortune, people took to calling it Chickendale – we put the hen on a keychain and wrote the word right over her.
The duo runs warm red and true black. On the black fob the hen is pressed in gold, which felt only fair for the bird that paid the town's bills.
Then, the best fact in the canning archive: it took fourteen tons of spinach to fill the cans for one railroad boxcar. We drew the boxcar with the tonnage written above it and stamped it into the corner of the toiletry bags – a honeyed russet bag over a deep brown one, close to a freight car's own oxide paint.
It looks genuinely beautiful.
After that, the tray. A dale is the place everything runs downhill to, and a catchall tray works the same way – so we drew the valley itself, two shoulders of land sagging to a hollow with the spring rising at the bottom, and set THE DALE over the low ground where the keys land each evening. Golden tan leather, pressed deep.
And finally, the one we liked the most. In 1872 word came back that Arkansas already had a Shiloh, so the town crossed the old name out and wrote a better one underneath. A journal is where second drafts live – this cover wears the town's own.
Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the leather – navy for the ink, pale warm greige for the limestone under the whole plateau.
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.
