I’ve been working away on bags for the last few weeks, This Couranteer being one of the last few in this batch. I’m a about a week and a half’s worth of work in on this one. Once I get to this point it all comes together pretty quickly. Relatively speaking

As I work away I’m thinking about all that has changed with the way I make these. I dye all this leather by hand. It is a three day process that has to take place before I even start making anything out of it.

There isn’t really anyway to recycle leather. I can’t melt it down, or kneed it back into a mound and start again. Once I start cutting the leather down every step I take is one I’m committed to. If the knife slips a little while I’m cutting out the edge of the body of a bag I can’t call my customer and ask if it’s okay to deliver a Couranteer that’s 13.5” wide instead of 14”. If the knife slips I have to start over. Hopefully it’s early on in the process. Rather than a few weeks in.

The knife has slipped more times that I’d like to admit. When it happens there is a whole grieving process. At first I can’t believe it happened. Then I try to convince myself that it’s fixable. Finally comes acceptance and I start over.

Ten years in I’m cutting out the parts slower than I ever have. I’ve done this hundreds of times at this point. Yet still in my head I’m double checking every step I’m taking. I have an itemized list in front of me with each little step written out. I check it as I go. Like an anxious novice looking over a recipe.

The knife makes a cut following along a groove I’ve made to demarcate the borders of the body panel. This first pass with the knife makes the trench deeper. The next pass with the knife will make the trench deep enough to hold the knife to the line. The third cut will pass the knife all the way through the leather. Slowly. Slowly progress is made. One pass at a time.

It has become a mantra I recite to my students in class. Go slow. Pay attention to what your hands are doing. Get each step right. It all adds up. Go slow to go fast.

The body panels are cut out and I’ve moved on to the pockets and gussets that will make the sides of the bag. This is what I’ve done for weeks now. This level of concentration requires all other work to stop in the studio.

As I cut and shape I’m thinking about the future of these bags. Three different weights of leather. Hardware. Strap leather. The commitment to dyeing all that leather. The concentration required. Thousands of spent dollars sitting around me waiting to be made into a bag. This system works when I’m doing nothing but bag making. When I’m doing anything else it’s thousands of spent dollars sitting around not doing anything. Slowly drying out and becoming stiffer and harder to work with.

I honestly don’t know where the future lays with these. I’m proud of my designs. I’ve never had to be pushy with selling them because there really isn’t anything else out there quite like what I make, If you want a nice bag there are lots of options. If you want one like what I make there really aren’t.

At the same time they are so resource intensive that I can’t really experiment with them. In every other area of my practice I’m making progress. Advancing my style. These haven’t changed.

In these few weeks of bag making I’ve done little else. All my other work is on hold while I do them. It’s coming down to math between sticking with what’s comfortable and safe in the past and what holds promise and potential for the future. I wish I could do both but it is becoming increasingly obvious to me that I can’t. There aren’t enough hours.

On any other decision the math is easy. I move forward. It’s what I’ve always done. These are different. I use these bags every day. I get stopped on the street and asked about them. I still catch myself looking across to studio at the display models thinking “Damn. I made that.”

But to stay on that path means giving up the one that I’m headed down. I just don’t think I’m the kind of person that can stay in one place like that.

It would be nice to end this with a clean ending. I don’t have one though. As I work through this bag I’m working through what to do about them. Slowly. With patience. Committed to each step. Watching my hands, checking the plan, thinking of the finished picture, trying to not let the knife slip.

Couranteer in the works