When we meet new folks at a market or event, I love to explain how Ben and I (Emily) work together to create things for BE Leathercraft. I usually say something fun like, "Ben creates patterns and crafts the products so they are useful and I make them pretty." Which basically means that I like to decorate our products with tooling/designs. At our business we create leather goods that are useful, beautiful + meaningful together.
There are lots of products that I have tooled on in the past and will continue with: composition covers, mason mugs, earrings, journals, coasters. My Enneagram four loves to come out in this process to create a useful product that is also lovely and makes someone feel something.
However, there was a desire to create art that could be hung on a wall. In Corbin, there is a group called Cumberland Arts Collective full of amazingly talented artists who draw, paint, sculpt, etc and create items to be displayed to evoke emotion. I wanted to do that.
Conceptulization to creation is the area where I struggle. I can admire a flower and wish that I obtained was the skill to sketch it on a piece of paper to eventually tool on leather. Unfortunately, at this time, this is not a skill I posess. To work through this struggle, I have learned to take photos in the moment, print photos of flowers that I have taken, trace the flower on paper and continue with the many steps of tooling: tracing on leather, carving and stamping each line of the design.
This summer, at a local event, Gallery in the Garden, I had the opportunity to bring our workbench and tools to a beautiful, magical, amazing, peaceful (I need more adjectives...) garden (Oak Hill Gardens in London, KY) to show the tooling process to guests.
If you've never heard of leather tooling, it is the process of dampening, carving and stamping leather to allow the design to stay on the leather. The only style of tooling that I was aware of was a western style that is seen often on saddles, bags, etc. While this style is amazing and always makes me "ohh and ahh" it wasn't one that evoked emotion for me. This is how I began to want to take the beauty in nature around imprint it on leather to last. To lean more heavily on the "beautiful" in our mission statement, to make leather goods that are useful, beautiful + meaningful.
I'm excited to share this journey with you and show some of the process. The inspiration is always the beauty around. Below, the beauty was my sweet family and a friend that gifted me this lovely bouquet at the Whitley County Farmer's Market. At the heart of what we do, you will find nature, community, family and a desire to make good things.
