Am I Giving Up on Wright & Rede?

Am I giving up on leather?

Why Cyanotypes?

“Are you giving up on leather work?”

The burning question that no one is asking but I'm imagining they are in my head.

The short answer, no. I still have a lot to say in that area. I love working with leather. I've spent a decade honing my craft and I still think about it every day.

So why the side project? Is the band breaking up?

Yes and no. I started this business thinking of myself as a little factory. A cottage industry. The point was to turn out a quality product and make a living with a little integrity. The problem with this plan is that A) anyone can do it (or appear to) and B) success with this plan looks like growing into just a bigger factory .

To sort out "A" I started making more creative work that has a higher bar to entry. Something not just anyone can sit down and do.

Sorting out "B" has been a bigger issue. What does success and growth look like if I'm not hiring people and producing more?

This is why I pivoted over the last few years to making more creative work. I don't just make wallets anymore. I make little bits of functional artwork you can carry around in your pocket. As the creativity and complexity of the work I've been doing has increased so has the price I charge for that work. That has worked for continuing to grow my business.

But I feel like I am nearing a ceiling on what I can accomplish with this plan. Continued growth along this path looks like eventually making insanely clever and meticulous art that I turn into wallets. Which I then have to charge thousands of dollars for to cover the time spent in making them.

I'm sure there are a few people out there willing to spend that much on a wallet. I don't know any of them, and I don't think there are enough I could reach to make a living. To be honest I don't think I would even want to make a living that way.

So then what do I do?

Well, I've spent the last few years (mostly during the hours of 2am and 5am) thinking about this. I'm in a weird situation. I'm making art, but treating it like a craft. I'm not just making functional goods. I have a whole ethos behind what I do. Come to the studio and I'll talk your ear off about it.

There are so many stylistic, ethical, and creative decisions over the years that I've managed to shoehorn into the leather goods I produce. When I started making cyanotypes again I suddenly realized all of those choices and artistic intent I've developed are quickly and easily applied to this other medium in really interesting ways.

Have you ever tried to figure out how to express the bittersweet magic in something that is beautiful but temporary? And then put that on a wallet?

I have.

You can see how I might be interested in applying some of this to a new arena.

It's like I've been serving wine in a coffee mug. Both coffee and wine are great on their own, but sometimes wine makes a lot more sense in a wine glass. There are so many things I can explore once I stop limiting the art I make to a canvas that is 3" x 4". I really want to explore those. I think this is why the very first body of work I made in cyanotype was on 30" x 22" sheets of watercolor paper. I needed to stretch out.

This also solves a question I've been trying to answer ever since I read the E-Myth Revisited. A book that makes some valid points about being an entrepreneur while simultaneously being completely soul crushing.

One of the points in this book that has really haunted me over the years is this. If you build your business around the work you do with your own two hands, what happens to your business when you aren't working? When you go on vacation your business stops. Every winter I am super cautious walking on ice. Because if I fall and break a hand I'm out of business until it heals. What happens if I get sick? Like I said earlier, I'm not interested in building a factory filled with employees churning out leather goods.

Cyanotypes offer a solution to this. The work I do in my studio with my own two hands creates originals. That labor is dependent on me. Once they are made a whole range of possibilities opens up.

High quality, archival, reproductions. In different sizes! Do you have any idea how amazing that is to me? For years I've made art that has to be wallet sized, and once it's done it's locked in. With cyanotypes I could make a cool image that could be as small as a greeting card and as big as a mural (at the same time and without me having to make new versions with my own two hands!!!).

But I'm here for leather work you think you think. What does this mean for that?

Two things. If I am successful at separating the income I make off my work from the income I make off my labor that is going to give me a lot more time to pursue different creative avenues in my leather work.

You have no idea the things I want to try. Pages and pages of ideas that I don't currently have the time or resources to tackle. The other part of this equation is that creating in a few different mediums feeds back in on itself. Leather work influences cyanotypes and cyanotypes influence leather work. So on and so on in an upward spiral. The more work I develop the greater pool of creativity I have to draw on.

So yeah. It's a lot. I am still not sure how to talk about it. But it feels right, and terrifying, and silly, and exciting all at once. It's going to be a journey. The path less traveled.