The Understory – leather studies of Gainesville, Georgia
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of original leather stamping studies.
A September study – Volume I-C.
The understory is the layer of the forest a walker actually lives in, and around Gainesville, Georgia it is generous – shaded foothill trails, a creek with a timber footbridge across it. This September we pressed that world into leather, luggage tags to journals, and called the collection The Understory.
First, we drew the timber footbridge that carries the trail over the creek in Chicopee Woods – plank deck and post-and-rail sides, the path dropping away into the trees behind it – and set CHICOPEE WOODS beneath. It runs lengthwise along the luggage tags, in bridge-timber warm tan, deep green and pale greige.
Looks great when stamped onto the leather.
Next, a plain fact from the trail map: Sourwood Trail gives you half a mile of planted shade. We arched a sourwood branch over the words, bell flowers hanging – HALF A MILE OF SHADE.
The keychains with the sourwood stamp, in golden tan and deep green, look just awesome.
The same stamp sits low in the corner of the toiletry bag, warm tan over chestnut – a good line to travel with.
Then, Forest Pond, where aquatic flowers interrupt the forest's reflection in the water. A catchall tray is a small pond of its own – things land in it and go still – so we set a single lotus at the center of the base, ripples reaching toward the rim.
It looks genuinely beautiful.
And finally, the one we liked the most. In a Gainesville conservation nursery, rare plants are kept going from seed until the day they can return to the wild – wetland orchids, trumpet pitchers. We drew the pitchers standing tall and gave the journal cover its one instruction: KEEP RARE THINGS ALIVE.
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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