I often credit my mother with guiding me to the joy of creating with my hands. Even though I am now a 51-year-old woman, mom still shares her latest crafting passions with me just like she did when I was five. Yet she wasn’t my only creative guide. My father taught me a few things about how to leave my mark.
He could be a gruff man, understandably so, considering that when I was a noisy toddler, he had to wake up before dawn to head down a mineshaft only to emerge 8 hours later filthy and exhausted. Couple the back-breaking workday with undiagnosed PTSD from Vietnam, and you get a father who wasn’t always soft and nurturing.
Yet, when we made things together, he let the gruffness fade. He encouraged my progress in a way that made me feel capable and accomplished. Small things bring back those memories for me, such as the smell of varnish or the sight of these metal stamps.
Not too light. Not too deep. Stay consistent.
Back in the 1970s, leather working was all the rage. My dad and my uncle spent hours using metal tools to stamp elaborate patterns onto thick pieces of leather. The patterned leather sheets transformed into belts for themselves and “big-girl” purses for my sister and me.
They taught us how to use the wooden mallet to strike the stamps with just enough strength to make a clear mark. Not too light. Not too deep. Stay consistent. Stamping leather was detailed, unforgiving work that took an incredible amount of patience.
Those stamps are now mine; an inheritance of sorts from both my father’s collection and more recently, my uncle’s set. I use them on polymer rather than leather. It is a much more malleable medium, yet the same principles apply. Not too light. Not too deep. Stay consistent.
