Happy Wednesday Everyone!
This week I’m bringing to you a leather artist! This isn’t really something I’ve covered or come along in any other medium so far, so let’s dig in!
This artist’s name is Suetyfiddle, and he’s from the UK. He primarily works in leather, binding books, making pins, tote or little dice bags, and more!
The fun part about all of those items? They’re usually intricately made to appear as a mimic.
Now, if you don’t know what a mimic is, let me enlighten you my friend.
Wikipedia says; “In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, the mimic is a type of fictional monster. It is portrayed as being able to change its shape to disguise its body as an inanimate object, commonly a chest”
Basically a mimic looks like whatever inanimate object it is portraying, but typically has a lot of teeth and eyes similar to a dragon. Long story short, they’re super neat.
Suety got started in leather-working through crafting as a hobby while going to school for science and engineering. Making a gift for a friend introducing him to bookbinding, and in turn prompted his working with leather primarily.
I really enjoy his work because I find the leather-working process fascinating. Sewing leather and seeing the different ways that folds can convey wrinkles in skin is just mesmerizing.
I asked what keeps him motivated to create and this is what he said;
“For the most part, it’s a compulsion. At my software job, I’d be constantly daydreaming about what to draw or make next. Now that art is my job, there’s always something new I want to try, a new construction problem to engineer. Partially it’s a challenge, or an addiction. Hard to describe. But also, now that art is my job, there are definitely days where I wake up and I don’t want to work, but those are the days that you have to push on through, so that you can get to the next challenge.”
Personally it’s really inspiring to me to see artwork as a form to engineer, because it really is. Given any medium, an artist is the one that engineers the final product using it.
Suety opened his Etsy in 2019, and quit his Dev job in 2020 to pursue leather-working full time. So far his favorite project has been working on creating handbags, as he wants his work to both be pretty and functional. With this in mind, he hopes to continue exploring more into the world of garments.
Furthermore, I look forward to seeing more of his garment work. This bag that he made is amazing, and honestly I would love to buy one someday.
Finally, I asked Suety if he had any advice to share with the world. Here is what he said;
“Experimentation! So many people want to try to make their own versions of my work, and they come to me asking all sorts of questions. I didn’t know how to do any of this a few years ago, but I spent some time researching, started small and did lots of testing and adjusting until I learned how to do what I needed to do. Something else that I notice: It’s easy to get demotivated in the online sea of content. But that content is coming from a huge number of people who have different goals, motivations, experiences, who have been working at their craft for much less or much more time. It’s important to remember that your goals are attainable, with time and patience and practice.”
Check out Suety’s leather-work and other projects here. It’s really cool and he deserves all the attention he can get. I hope that his words have maybe helped inspire you or introduced a new way of viewing the artistic world.
Toodles~