What's A Leather Artist?

[chriscraft]

Okay, this isn't aimed at the traditional leatherworker purist. That is an entire different skill and job many dont wish to obtain. I fully respect the leatherworker trade but at my age I don't have the commitment to start a new career.

I'm trying to figure out why some dont consider some types of leatherwork art.

In leatherwork, Is the word "craft" a generic term when considering a simple leather strap stamped with a name and a couple of snaps to make a wrist band. The type of stuff one would expect to find at an early 1980's out door craft fair with a price range under $10.

These arts and craft items don't compare to some of the incredible hand tooled quality leather items I've seen posted in this forum. Items that involve many hours to produce and a different skill set. Still an average consumer would only like to pay craft prices.

I believe an art form is only produced by an artist. It takes many years of study and practice to be able to finally produce an item that would be considered art. This same artist would have trained his fine motor function to then easily be able to move to a different art medium. Learn the basic skills and soon produce an attractive item. It is the person or artist that achieves this using the same tools and materials a novice would take years to achieve.

This is what makes consumers step up to the plate and purchase those big ticket items. This is why even 50 years ago the same saddle comming out of the same shop if made by a skilled and talented leatherworker would attract more attention. Even hand tools that were used by these unique workers were being mass produced and sold baring there name or brand.

So what is a leather Artist? By my understanding this would make every great leatherworker a leather artist. I've only found this term ( leather artist) referenced in a negative way.

[oldhat]

Hello Chris, i am not entirely sure i understand why you have asked this question, but i will have a go at giving you my take on it. To me a piece of art is something created by a person that expresses that individuals personality and is created usually as a one of a kind piece, so to me most of the pieces or probably all the pieces on here are by that definition works of art. So i guess that makes most of us leathercrafters leather artists.Just my own view of course for what it is worth.

[DoubleC]

I guess I'm with oldhat. I have my 5 & 10 buck items that are well made but not very artistic. You have to have those to survive the farmer's market regime. But I also have pieces I consider art, and they vary from necklaces to a square piece of leather painted on. I consider it art and maybe I use the term more loosely than you do. But if I can make something beautiful out of leather then I am artist. Cheryl

[JLSleather]

I think there SHOULD be a distinction, but often there is not. If you put the green on the #3 and red where there's a 5, hard to call you an artist. Likewise with leather - tooled or otherwise. I can teach any monkey who is not stumbling drunk how to trace a line and "bop" a shade tool or beveler. In fact, I sometimes (less than diplomatically) refer to this mechanic ROTE as "old mcdonald tooling" (here a shade, there a shade, everwhere a ...).

But I don't think art is confined to pictorial rendering either. I know a few boys who couldn't paint if you put a gun to their head, but give em some leather and a sponge and they produce GORGEOUS items - often items the rest of us didn't "see" there until it was done (much like a sculptor sees a chunk of rock).

You don't need to be on LW very long to see that certainly more than half of leather people can't paint. Well, some can't and some don't , most likely. This is why that ant-streak paste is ever-popular. It goes in the low spots and comes off the high spots, much like kindergarten shading

I try ot keep a combination of things going. I often airbrush the leather (no, I don't mean that "fade" around the edges of a project), I try to use designs that have some depth and perspective, and even the 'plain' projects I try to put a little something in the design. I really don't think about if that's "art" or just doing something I enjoy.

That said, I saw a holster the other day that was perhaps the BEST looking holster I've seen to date (and I've seen a bunch). Paddle holster, with a simple creased border set in a bit from the edge, dipped in solid mahogany dye -- monochromatic as she gits. But the simplicity of the design was not "plain", but rather functional and CLEAN - rational and orderly. Artistic even ...

[oldhat]

Hi JLS,i agree with your comments completely, painting by numbers is not art because you are not putting your own thoughts and ideas into the piece as someone else has decided what is going where so i suppose they would be the artist in such a case. I am not sure if the op is meaning that it is only art if it is pictoral as you say, hopefully they will jump in and let us know. Most people would consider a sculpture to be a piece of art, so surely we are sculpting leather, making us leather artists. When a child paints a picture is that art, i suppose some would say it is art, just not very good art, but then we get into the world of what is good art, i suppose that would be a whole other very long thread/debate.Was jackson Pollock good art? well i am not sure we want to go there

[King's X]

I'll take a whack and put my .02 cents in. I know that my opinion doesn't mean much in world circles, but here it is.

I believe an artist is an artist no matter what their medium is. If you can turn something into any form of art that others find interesting then you are an artist. Some have years of training and some have no training at all, just plain luck. I know a few that can pick up a pencil or stylus and go to town. In leather work, if you take the time to study and understand your mediums it would certainly help you develop certain skills necessary to better your craft.

Being able to work with all types of leather in different formats (plain, carved, painted, embossed, inlay, applique, etc) would certainly make you versatile. As a person, I believe you call yourself what you like. I am a hobbyist, but I do not mind being called a Craftsman, Artist, or newbie. The only term that I do not accept at this point is Master because I feel that I haven't learned enough about my craft to be one nor am I good at one part.

Interesting thread.

[cgleathercraft]

I believe that art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

- I had a much longer response typed but that summed it up perfectly.

[chriscraft]

What I should have asked is "What's the difference between a Leather Artist and a Leather Crafter? I came upon this question while reading here in LW these past years and I started to get confused.

I understand that a person that has gained recognition as an Artist due to a certain style can have an impact. Then if this new artist were to later produce a simple non-original item that a child can reproduce then I wouldn't call this simple item Art. Only the masterpiece that he created before would be art. I agree with JLS on the paint by numbers comment and using the word "technician". I have seen a person that could not draw a stick figure teach himself how to use an airbrush as his main tool and make thousands recreating murals on recreational vehicles. Not one simple brush stroke or design was original, all images were copied from post cards. He never claimed to be an artist or even signed his work. It was his customers that gave him that title. As long as he had people paying him he had work and that was all he wanted.

This story can be easily translate to leatherwork. Guy needs to earn money to pay bills. Guy visits a successful leather holster shop that cant keep up with the demand so Guy decides to start up a small home based leather shop. Guy starts building crappy holsters for his fist year but then gets the hang of this after investing in better equipment, material and holster patterns. Guy then has a decent product and soon word of mouth spreads on where to buy inexpensive holsters from a home based leatherworker. Guy doesn't make millions of dollars but enough to pay his bills. After all, that's all that Guy wanted. Guy is now a successful leatherworker. Happy ending, "right".

I am not a fan of Jackson Pollock's Drip Style Paintings and I don't believe he was the first to stumble upon this kind of abstract work. House painters have been dripping paint of various colors on cloth long before him but never thought of stretching it on a wooden frame and calling this Art. Pollack gained his recognition by being the first person to drip paint onto stretched canvas and push it as Art. He now had an ORIGINAL idea and that's the only reason HIS work hangs in museums today. For this I respect him. His drip painting style has been copied by many including amateurs and it would be very difficult to tell it apart from the originator. And "No", replicating his work would not make you an artist unless it was you that was the first to stumble upon this.

In using leather as a material to produce artwork. I believe one can still stumble across an idea or style to create something new that has never been done before. Then face the criticism that follows, does it move you or does it make you sick. That's why its called art or functional art.

So I guess I answered my own inner question that's been swirling inside my head. I am not an Artist and may never be. But I can learn to be a better leather technician (LT). Nothing wrong with that, its just the reality.

[JLSleather]

And there lies another question. I've known a few of those guys -- just a 'good eye', by nature (which i think is crowding the true definition of artist).

Guy down south had a sandwich truck - used to sell me awesome breakfast burritos made on the spot. Painted his truck, I think out of boredom. Next thing - he only does breakfast runs, because the rest of the day he paints. For a LOT more money than the truck was earning.

And, fella here in town wanted some advice on airbrushes - never used one, and had no idea what to look for. He showed me some pictures on his phone of charcoal drawings he did recently -- commission to draw the entire cast of 'sons of anarchy' tv show. Simple "rendering", they would be auctioned off to raise money for some charity. Like 8 drawings, brought roughly $500 each. Said they each took about half an hour. Total investment for materials under $5. I certainly couldn't do what he does. I could get there, but nowhere near as smooth and quickly as he does. Took a photograph of someone, and a charcoal stick, and a "wad" of toilet paper. 45 minutes later, there's a drawing on like 12" x 18" that looked like a black n white photograph -- AMAZING detail. Now, he had some reason he wanted to "try" using an airbrush.

Which brings us to the "medium" for the art. One guy with a truck he used daily anyway. One guy with a piece of paper. Both making far more money than most leather workers I know. Now, I personally work with leather because I LIKE leather.

Concerning money, I have made more money doing things OTHER than leather, and sometimes when I see / hear someone talking about 'making money' with their craft, I wonder why they chose leather. There certainly are other mediums with a wider profit margin.

[chriscraft]

I guess this topic is a question within a question or better yet, a discussion.

My Grandfather made leather goods and the people he made them for really appreciated the level of skill and craftsmanship he provided them. I admired his work up until I hit middle school Art class. We had a similar discussion about Artist and self proclaimed Artist. Soon after this changed the way I viewed Art in general. It really bummed me out once the "Commercial Artist" topic followed. I remember this being the reason I didn't want to pursue leatherwork anymore, I was only 13 years old. Its sad to recall this and to view leather items for only their simplex function and when decorated (tooled). Its just a waste of time. Although appreciated by some, not sought out by many.

While still in middle school I found my new interest in adding color to my drawings. Two years later I was introduced to the airbrush and I soon became one of the many who ran to the beaches making a living using it. It was the fastest way that I could apply color to a simple drawing to make it stand out. I didn't consider this Art as these were simple basic name designs that I could produce in a matter of minutes while you wait. The industry called us "Airbrush Artist" but I didn't see any art in it. Yes, I had many commissions to airbrush portraits and other time consuming images but in the end it was the easy $5-$12 fast t-shirt designs that paid my bills. It was a high that lasted 15 years till airbrushed t-shirts became tough to even give away during Spring Break.

I then resorted back to my roots of creating pencil/ink line drawings on paper as a hobby. Now I'm back at playing with leather trying to gain back the years I've lost. I have now found that if a leather product is well crafted using quality materials and will outlast the test of time. There is a market for such items as it always has been. I just couldn't see it back then.

So I guess it's a little of both, Art and Craft. In order to produce the time consuming original Art pieces one must Craft many smaller less expensive leather goods in order to make ends meat.