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For as long as I can remember, I have enjoyed making things with my hands. I used to spend hours in my father’s woodshop and my grandfather’s machine shop creating all kinds of stuff that crept into my head. Most people just shook their heads wondering what I was doing out there in back, but I never paid much heed to what people thought. After all, what thirteen-year-old boy wouldn’t want to try to hand forge the elven blade that Bilbo Baggins obtained from a troll horde and ended up naming Sting? Sometime during high school I started working with leather. Most of the pieces I was making were for some kind of costume. It was in college when I decided to make something I could use every day, a nice leather satchel to carry my books in. My girlfriend and I went in together on a hide and I made us each a rather basic, but very dependable bag. I’ve been making leather bags by hand ever since. The inspiration for my bags and other leather items comes from reading too many fantasy novels as a child, having a keen interest in history, years of performing at and attending Renaissance Festivals, an appreciation of American folk art, my love of Halloween, and a desire to create something that is completely original. When I am not designing, cutting or dying a new bag, I keep myself busy playing the great Scottish Highland Bagpipe, teaching pipes to some wonderful students, occasionally running in Central Park, watching a classic Samurai film, going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, taking in a Yankees game or going to a seissun to hear some traditional Irish music. |
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