Slow Country – a Carlisle, Kentucky leather collection
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of original leather stamping studies.
A September study. Volume II.
Carlisle, Kentucky has been called The Town That Time Forgot, and these days a giraffe looks over a four-board fence there. We spent September pressing that unhurried country into leather, from luggage tags to a catchall tray, and named the collection Slow Country.
First, the ones who traveled this county before anyone owned a suitcase. The old roads here were walked out by buffalo heading to the salt springs at Blue Licks, so we set a bull mid-stride on the bending trace, his own tracks behind him, and wrote THE FIRST TRAVELERS above the road.
It runs lengthwise along the tag, on golden tan and on deep green. The black tag carries the gold.
Next, the journals. We hung a two-toed sloth from the clock's minute hand, both claws hooked over the tip where it overshoots the rim – which is roughly how a town gets forgotten by time. TAKE YOUR TIME, reads the line beneath, and a blank page has always agreed.
Looks great when stamped onto the leather – once on warm gray, nearly her own coat, and once on warm tan.
Then the keychains. A tortoise at full stride, speed lines trailing, above the three words every latecomer has ever typed – ON MY WAY. Keys ought to hang from something that always gets there.
After that, we lowered a capybara chin-deep into still creek water for the corner of the toiletry bag, and set STILL WATERS beneath her – the calmest bather in the county, presiding over the one bag that goes to the bath.
The stack is honeyed russet, about as close as leather comes to capybara fur, over deep espresso.
And finally, the one we liked the most – the collection's flag. A low sun on the rolling hills, a four-board fence across the foreground, and behind the boards a giraffe's neck where a century ago nobody would have believed it, under the arched words SLOW COUNTRY. We pressed it at generous size into the base of the golden tan tray, where every pocket empties at its own pace at the end of the day.
Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the leather.
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.
