Two Currents – a leather collection from Elmira Heights, New York
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of leather stamping studies.
A September study – Volume II.
We call this collection Two Currents. It is rooted in Elmira Heights, New York, in a valley that runs on two kinds of moving – air that climbs off the ridges and water that winds along the floor – and it is pressed onto everything from leather luggage tags to journals.
First, the emblem. The ridges here bend the wind upward and the sailplanes ride it; below them the Chemung takes its unhurried bends and carries the canoes. We set the two currents one above the other, a glider riding the top one and a paddler riding the bottom one, and wrote the bargain out plainly – ONE LIFTS ONE CARRIES.
Across the golden tan of the catchall tray it runs at generous size. Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the leather.
It waits in the corner of the toiletry bag too – navy over deep espresso, river water over valley earth.
And the keychains carry it in navy and in warm tan – a small valley for a pocket.
Next, the local instructors. Bald eagles nest in the cliff-top woods above the Chemung, and they work the same rising air the gliders borrow. So we put both of them on one thermal – the eagle ahead, the sailplane learning – over FLY WITH THE LOCALS.
It runs lengthwise along the luggage tags. Black carries the gold – the one leather that takes the foil pass.
The pale sea-blue tag is the sky doing the lifting; the deep green one is the ridge doing the bending. It looks genuinely beautiful.
And finally, Watkins Glen, the region's proudest excursion. The gorge walls are stacked like pages, and the water has been writing on them since the ice left. We drew the layered walls from the park's own photographs, with the curtain waterfall hanging on the left and the channel winding back to the little stone arch bridge. WRITTEN BY WATER stands beneath the frame.
On a journal the words do their second job – the stamp sits low in the corner of the cover, warm gray for the gorge stone and deep green for the moss on its walls.
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 anything here made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.
P.S.
