Leather Making

The one year I was in Jakarta, Indonesia, I had the pleasure to take up a few classes at INDOESTRI Makerspace and met some wonderful people that runs the workshops, as well a few other fellow students. One of the classes that I was eager to learn from was the Leather classes. I'm not ashamed to admit that I did took most of their Leather classes, not only they were affordable, they were very useful.

I was glad to have run into this wonderful workshop space during my travel. If you know my previous stories then you would know that I had a pretty decent creative business back in Chicago. As you may already know I closed my shop and creative outlet last year (March 2015) to embark onto a new journey of creative research. I had accomplished my goals but I needed more to grow and I knew that I had to take on a different route and therefore the one year in South East Asia.

As a previous business owner and creative endeavor, I find it very important to understand how certain things are made, and to find beauty in the details of the process, which I think is the most important part. I needed to touch and feel textures. I needed to smell and visualize. I needed to create things with my hands in order to appreciate and respect the true nature of creating something from nothing. To be 100% a Selfmade person. To quote the values of INDOESTRI, "Being a SelfMade means that you've been through or in the process of shaping yourself with your own initiative. It's because you want to act on your passion, that's what makes you a SelfMade. -- Being a SelfMade makes you appreciate hard work and perseverance of skill building, therefore appreciate other's works even more" -- Umm, more like "GIVE ME A HIGH FIVE, YO!" 

My first leather class was to make card wallet, and then onto making a bag, notebook cover, and toddler shoes (booties). Each class was taught by professional leather artisans from Indonesia and Hong Kong. Below are the process of making Toddler Leather Booties. These projects were one of my favorites! These classes taught me to really be patience with myself and my intentions of creating. I think the best part is knowing that I now possess these skills and I can go out to the World to create something wonderful or simply to just add new skills into my professionalism knowledge. But, seriously though, I did almost bought the whole entire crafting section of Tokyu Hands to find the perfect leather making tools when I was in Japan. So, hopefully, I can go back into making one of these someday soon.