Root words

Sylvanbrōc Leather was born out of an urge to make something with my hands. As an English teacher and somewhat of an academic, I spend most of my time making things with words and working with my head. It’s the best job I can imagine, but it can get a bit abstract, especially in a digital age that keeps pushing us toward greater levels of vaporous immateriality and detachment from the Real.

There’s something about holding a piece of good leather with just the right temper, feeling the cool smoothness of its grain, and smelling its particular blend of waxes and tannins that gets me in touch with my humanity—embodied, sensory, real—and the solid thinginess of things. At the end of the day, we need things we can touch—in the words of Texas songwriter Guy Clark, “stuff that’s real, stuff you feel, the kinda stuff you reach for when you fall.”

I’m still very much an amateur in that leathercraft isn’t my full-time profession. I used to resist the term ‘amateur’ for fear that it would signal a lack of respect for the craft. But then I discovered that love is quite literally at the root of being an amateur: the word is derived, through French, from the Latin ‘amare,’ meaning ‘to love.’ Amateurism is now something I aspire to. Regardless of where this passion project goes, I always aim to be a professional in craft and an amateur in spirit.

All Sylvanbrōc products are handcrafted from premium materials, using traditional tools and techniques. I work mostly with vegetable tanned leather, which I source from heritage tanneries in the United States or Italy, particularly Wickett & Craig in central Pennsylvania and La Bretagna Conceria in the Tuscany region of Italy.

What’s in the name?

Sylvanbrōc is a nod to my love for the English language and the small stream that flows through the wooded ravine behind our place here in Meadville.

Sylvan is a 16th-century word for forest or wood; brōc is the Old English spelling of brook and is pronounced similarly. At least, I pronounce it that way. Back before the Great Vowel Shift (read about it here), it was probably a longer 'o,' as in 'broke.' English is weird, wonderful, and eminently forgiving. Feel free to go either way with it.

Thanks so much for your interest!