Sweet Water – a Voorhees Township leather stamping collection
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of original leather stamping studies.
A September study. Volume II.
SWEET WATER is a small leather collection for Voorhees Township, New Jersey, and the pinelands beside it, where the cedars steep the streams the color of tea. The old captains' story says that water kept sweet in the cask for a whole sea voyage – so this study follows it from the swamp to the ship, across full-grain leather in navy and pale greige, deep wine and steeped browns.
First, the namesake. We set the captains' cask at the swamp's edge, two cedars standing over it and the stream still running past, with SWEET WATER above KEPT FOR THE VOYAGE.
On the navy luggage tag it stands upright – sea colors for sea water.
And it presses small in the corner of the toiletry kit, navy over deep brown – the bag that still carries your water on voyages.
Next, the place where the steeping happens. Out in the swamp each cedar stands on its own little island of grass, and on a windless day its reflection runs all the way down the water – we drew a row of them from a regional photograph and set WHERE THE WATER STEEPS beneath.
It runs lengthwise along the pale greige tag. Looks great when stamped onto the leather.
And it crosses the base of the golden tan catchall tray at generous size, so whatever the day put in your pockets lands on still water.
Then, September at Black Run, one town over. In the photograph we worked from, the far margin has gone red for autumn – a die is black and white, so we pressed the reeds and the water plane, and left the reds to the leather.
The deep wine tag takes the autumn side.
The journals split the season between them – warm red for the margin that turns, deep green for the pines that stay. Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the leather.
And finally, one drop of the water itself for the keychain fobs – a white cedar standing inside the dark of it, STEEPED set beneath. We pressed it twice: warm tan for a short steep, deep brown for the long one.
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.
