Leather artisan, Steven Smith, shares about his journey to finding his craft and identity in the arts.
In the fall of 2017, Steven Smith started designing his first leather journal. He worked in secret, hiding the hobby from his family in the locker room of the soccer stadium where he coached. That Christmas he gifted me, his daughter, with that journal. It was a surprise that harkened back to the weekly trips we used to take to Barnes & Noble where I would stare longingly at the shelves of journals with dimpled leather and yellowed pages. We journeyed there every Wednesday during my middle school years on the evenings my mom had graduate school classes.
The same year my dad began crafting in secret, he announced he would retire from coaching at the season’s end. What had served as a decades-long career would soon sit in the past. Thinking he might be due for a new hobby, I picked up a book (from our Barnes & Noble, of course) on leather crafting to give to him at Christmas.
The exchange of gifts seems serendipitous in retrospect. Six years later, Steven Smith is the artist behind Holland Leather Works. From his workshop, he has produced passport holders, portable bar kits, wine quivers, portfolios, and more. Through leather crafting, he has found not just a second career, but another passion. When he creates new designs, especially custom works, he often finds himself thinking, “This is something this person should have for generations.” In one of our many conversations about his craft, he expressed that he had always loved art, but at a young age wrote himself off from being an artist. In sixth grade, he stopped drawing, certain he could never measure up to Ronny, his older brother. “I saw my brother's art and I thought now he's an artist and I'm not,” Smith confided. My uncle went on to pursue an MFA and career in neon glassblowing and metals, while my father tried to leave art behind and became a professor and collegiate soccer coach.
Despite my father’s belief that he’d never be an artist, my memories throughout childhood serve contrary evidence. I remember him rendering a sketch of his dream house with makeshift drafting tools and using woodworking skills to craft furniture, including the live-edge oak console table that now sits in my living room. Even while he was in graduate school, he found himself learning a new craft, which would eventually serve his leather work well: sewing. At the time, my mother was working at an interior design company who asked her to make pillows after hours for extra cash. During times when orders were high, he’d help cut fabric, sew, and even develop new patterns. He described it as “a skill of necessity” because it helped pay the bills through school.
While it has taken several decades, the leather artisan has finally accepted his identity as an artist. Smith shared that his creative process usually begins in the night owl’s hours. “Ideas will pop into my mind and then I have trouble falling asleep,” he said. The day after, he’ll usually wake naturally around 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. With a new concept in mind, it’s easy to hop out of bed and head to the workshop, where he’ll turn on an English Premier League game, an audiobook, or classic rock. “Yeah, you might even find me dancing while I'm working,” he said, his confession managing to shock the author of this article. On those early studio mornings, the hours fly by as Smith troubleshoots new concepts and builds prototypes. Those are the days that reignite the creative spirit of the craft, the days that get him through the monotony of others spent on repetitious matters like producing several dozen wallets or passport holders.
After six years and the production of several products, Smith still favors making journals. “There’s something about those that makes me so happy,” he said, admitting part of that is the nostalgia of our days spent at Barnes & Noble. “This would not be happening in my life if it wasn’t for those Wednesday nights… Every time that I went there with you, I would think I could do that,” he said and years later he has proven his thoughts true.
Find Steven Smith’s artisan made journals, backpacks, wallets, and more at Ox-Bow House in Downtown Douglas.
Steven Smith is a leather artisan from Holland, Michigan. He began his craft in response to his daughter’s love of writing in her journals. In response Steven started hand crafting journals for her which turned into many requests for more from friends who saw the work. The expansion into the art continued to grow as time passed to include many forms of leather artisan products including bags, purses, wallets, and many other specialty items. Steven is a retired professor emeritus at Hope College.
This article was written by Shanley Poole, Engagement Liaison & Storyteller. The article was originally published in our Experience Ox-Bow 2024 Catalog.
All images provided courtesy of the artist.