“When we take a tool in hand and touch it to our material.”
Makers, artisans, and craftspeople explore the world through their interactions with materials. How things are made and what they are made of interests us passionately. We care about where things come from, how they are used and ultimately, what their end life may be.
When we take a tool in hand and touch it to our material, we join a long chain of human gesture in the ritual of transforming, shaping and giving substance to our ideas.
Tuscan vegetable tanned leather is a material that connects far back into the very roots of man’s tradition of making, born of the necessity to make use of every part of the animal used as food. It was, and is, a precious material and its transformation, through the interaction of natural processes, from waste matter into a resource of durable value over time, was an evolutionary achievement.
Vegetable tanning, as performed in Tuscany by the members of the Genuine Italian Vegetable Tanned Leather Consorzio, is a very ancient process that has been enhanced through ever increasing vigilance to its impact on the biosphere. Every step in the process is traceable and all by products of the activity are themselves gathered and returned as a resource of value, as is the goal of a circular economy.
Everyone participating in the Craft the Leather workshop becomes very aware of how every aspect is interconnected with the traditions special to this place. Great attention is placed on the process footprint because this is a territory of highly esteemed agricultural specialties in a landmark landscape. And the tanners themselves live here; their investment in the thriving balance of nature is very personal.
In my experience…
“One by one I connect the different leather elements to each other. I see my interpretation of nature growing slowly but steadily. By wearing my jewellery pieces you see changes happening in the material; the leather ages, but doesn’t ruin, thanks to the beautiful characteristics of vegetable-tanned leather. The story of the wearer becomes visible in my work. Wearing my work is a crucial part of the continuation of growth and change in the pieces. They become more beautiful, day by day. I want the wearer of these pieces to feel like nature is growing and crawling on them and for this experience to make them more aware of nature and in all its beauty.”
The winner of Craft The Leather 2019 is…
The weighted average of the three votes, in which the technical jury’s vote had a greater percentage weight than the popular vote, produced the following final ranking:
- 1st Hongji Lee – London College of Fashion
- 2nd Evelien Sommen – Sask – Academy of Fine Arts Sint Niklaas
- 3rd Jade Houben – Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp
