The Little Ark – a Carlisle, Kentucky leather collection
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of leather stamping studies.
A September study. Volume I-D.
In the rolling Bluegrass around Carlisle, Kentucky, a capybara will take a carrot straight from your hand. We spent September pressing four of those unlikely neighbors into leather, onto luggage tags and journals, onto keychains and a catchall tray. We call the collection The Little Ark.
First, we gave the red kangaroo the job she was born for. BUILT IN LUGGAGE, reads the tag – she has carried a pouch her whole life, and the joey riding in it peeks out to make the point.
It looks genuinely beautiful. We pressed her on honeyed russet, the exact rust of her own coat, and on deep forest green, the color of her paddock grass. The black tag carries the gold.
Next, the two-toed sloth. We hung her from the words TAKE YOUR TIME – her claws hook straight over the letters, so the phrase does the work of the branch. Stamped in the corner of a journal it becomes standing advice: the pages will wait for you.
Looks great when stamped onto the leather – once on warm gray, the shade of her own shaggy coat, and once on deep green.
Then, UNBOTHERED. A capybara sits chin-deep in still water, with nowhere to be and no hurry about getting there. We put her on the keychain, where the word finds you mid-hunt for your keys, and low in the corner of the toiletry bag, presiding over the quietest minutes of the morning.
The keychains – one warm tan, one pale sea-blue – look just awesome. The bag stacks warm tan over chestnut.
And finally, we went further back than any fence in the county. Before Carlisle had roads it had buffalo – the old traces through this stretch of Kentucky were trodden out by herds walking to the salt springs at Blue Licks. THE BUFFALO WALKED IT FIRST follows a bull down the bending road.
Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the leather – pressed into the center of a golden tan catchall tray, where keys and pocket change finish their own short migrations every night.
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.
