About Me
I grew up in the Texas Hill Country and after serving in the US Air Force I settled in the Pacific Northwest. That's where I picked up building things as an official hobby. I started by carving various crude figures out of wood and in 2009 I made my first item out of leather. It was a simple leather holster to hold a wooden pistol I'd made for a convention costume. I've been working with leather ever since.In 2012 I moved to beautiful British Columbia to get married and I brought my craft with me. Under the terms of my immigration application I wasn't able to work or attend college study so I worked on perfecting my leatherworking. My Permanent Residency application was approved in 2014 and a month later I opened Foster Leathercraft.
Merging the Ancient with the Advanced
When I first began building things I was very interested in trying to use as many authentic techniques as possible. Although I originally began with woodworking I avoided using power tools and focused on using "electron-less" hand tools. This was certainly challenging at times and often wasn't the most efficient way to produce things, but it gave me a healthy respect for the craftsmen (and women) of old. There's an incredible depth to the history of building things and taking matters literally into my own hands to build items with the most basic of tools was enlightening.Before I choose leatherworking as my profession I spent a decade working in the IT field, and from these experiences I know just what can be accomplished with modern technologies and innovations. I feel there is a direct line from those "craftsmen of old" to the engineers and researchers of modern technology.
Lately I've been exploring combining the two approaches, notably by seeing how additive manufacturing (better known as 3D Printing) can be used in the working of wood and leather. In this case some applications, such as printing custom hardware, seem pretty obvious but I'm excited to explore less obvious applications.
