Silver to Snow – Park City mountain living in stamped leather – Volume I-A
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of leather stamping studies.
A September study – Volume I-A.
Silver to Snow – a small leather collection about Park City mountain living, for the town that dug silver out of one side of a mountain and learned to ski down the other. We pressed that story into leather, from luggage tags to a catchall tray.
First, the Skier Subway. In 1965 a mine train carried skiers into the Spiro tunnel and an elevator lifted them out onto the slopes – the mountain's old workings turned into a ski lift. We put the ore car on the luggage tags with skis riding in its doorway, rolling down the rails toward the portal under SILVER TO SNOW. It travels three leathers, from true black through honeyed russet, the color of the car's hard-used paint, to deep conifer green.
The black tag carries the design in gold.
Next, the lamp. Keys leave the house last and come home first, so the fob carries an old miners' safety lamp, flame lit, over the words HOME BY LAMPLIGHT. One fob comes in golden amber, the color of lamplight. On the black fob the flame prints in gold.
Looks great when stamped onto the leather.
Then, the making-do. Before the lifts there was a winter to get through, and the museum's records show locals in 1953 mounting old bindings on barrel staves at Snow Park and skiing anyway. We stamped that skier in the toiletry bag's corner, poles planted and staves underfoot, over SNOW PARK 1953. The stack pairs warm snow gray over mottled chestnut, a drift against mine timber.
Then, the altitude. Life here happens a little above seven thousand feet, and whatever gets written down gets written up there. So on the journal's corner a ridgeline descends and levels out into the ruled line you write on, over the plain admission SEVEN THOUSAND FEET. It comes in pale snow greige and in ink navy.
It looks genuinely beautiful.
And finally, the one we liked the most – the Silver King, whole. The great corrugated mill still stands against its ridge on the mountain above town, aspens grown up around it, and we set that view inside a ring on the catchall tray, between PARK CITY arced above and SILVER TO SNOW below. A tray is where the day's pockets empty out; this one empties them under the building that paid for the town.
Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the golden tan.
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.
