The First Grove – a leather stamping study of the Ojai Valley's citrus heritage
Volume I-A – The First Grove, a small leather collection for the Ojai Valley's citrus-growing heritage.
A September study.
The valley's first orange grove was planted in 1873, a year before the town below it even had its name. Everything here grows out of that fact and the century that followed, when packing houses stenciled the valley's name onto crates and sent it into the world.
First, the luggage tags. A crate leaving a packing house told you at a glance where its fruit was packed; we gave the suitcase the same courtesy. One orange with its leaves sits at the left of a stencil frame, and PACKED IN OJAI runs lengthwise beside it.
Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the leather. The black tag carries the words in gold foil; the golden tan and the deep green take a blind deboss.
Next, the keychains. Oranges still come off the branch by hand, one twist of the wrist at a time – so we drew a hand closing around the fruit under the words HAND PICKED. Anyone who receives one can take it as a compliment.
The keychains look just awesome in golden tan and in navy.
Then, the journals. A grove opens its year as five-petal stars and closes it as fruit, and a notebook does the same with ideas. One branch crosses the corner of the cover and makes the whole change in front of you – FROM BLOSSOM TO FRUIT.
Looks great when stamped onto the leather – once on a blossom-pale greige, once on a deep leaf green.
After that, the toiletry bags, stacked in honeyed russet over chestnut. Packers once wrapped every orange in its own square of tissue before the crate was nailed shut, and a toiletry bag makes the same promise to whatever rattles inside it. The stamp is one wrapped orange, twisted shut at the crown, over the oldest phrase in shipping – HANDLE WITH CARE.
And finally, the catchall tray – the design the collection is named for. Orchard rows run back toward the mountain wall under an arc of OJAI VALLEY, and 1873, the year of the first grove, stands at the base. The valley holds its groves; the tray holds whatever the day brought home.
It looks genuinely beautiful.
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.
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