…ML Leather
Hello everybody! Today I’m with Cody. How are you?
I am awesome! About to eat breakfast with my kids and drink some coffee.
Hehe, great! Can you introduce yourself and your brand to our readers?
Well my name is Cody Vance and I am the founder of ML Leather.
ML Leather provides traditional handcrafted functional products to folks who are looking for utility and durability for their everyday adventures.
Do you think Spring and Texas are suitable places for creatives like you?
Certain areas of Texas have become wonderful communities of creativity, yes. Spring, itself has birthed many creative and artistic people, but then never stay here for long. We are trying to build that sustainable artistic community that feeds back into itself.
Accommodating and cultivating creativity and fellowship among people who are like us and others around us.
That’s the entire Idea behind what inspired ML Leather right from the start. We’ve even started working with local farmers markets to promote locally produced and crafted goods as one of the first steps to make this idea come to life.
When and how did you get passionate about leather goods?
As far as I remember I have always created things. My earliest memory is when my mother showed me how to crochet yarn with my fingers, and my G-DMother teaching me how to build bird houses. But in the Fall of 2010 Leather became my main focus and passion.
Can you tell us something about your first works?
Oh Lordie, My first works may have been useable to say the least, but they certainly weren’t the prettiest of things. Thank goodness i found a passion for carving shortly thereafter. most of my earlier works were visually, a lot more intricate after that.
Hehe. What are your main visual influences?
When it comes to something visual, I am very complex person. A part of me is very simple and plain, simplicity calms me. But the other part of me is like a war zone. As long as things seem as though they contrast each other or another words “fit” together, I am in inspirational heaven. But above all it has to be useful. My thought is, if it cant be used to better your environment or the people within your environment, it is not needed and there is no point in having it or creating it.
Can you describe us your workshop?
Well, right now I work out of my garage that we converted into a pretty awesome work space. I use to work out of cabin that we built from the ground up, but then we moved and since I am stay at home Father I decided to move our shop in our garage. Doing this allowed me to create things while being with my kiddos. Majority of the tools we use are hand tools that pre-date the 20th century. We have a lot of random stuff like pictures of my days traveling, a lot of bones and furs, oh and a few antique chandeliers that my fiancé restored.
What are you working on these days?
I have been steadily working on new products or picking back up old projects and making them better. But here in the past few months we have been more focused on our kickstarter project. It has been awesome thus far, but can be stressful at times especially when you are trying to educate others on how important this is for our community and future.
What about your plans for the future?
My plan at this point is to create things to help others. I have always been about taking care of others and I want to stress that more in the future. It will for sure happen once we get to a place of being free to create things that we have been dreaming of.
Thank you Cody! Is there anything else would you like to say to our readers?
I would love to say that every single person reading this has a falme within themselves. And you could do so much good for this world. If you are stuck in a place of not knowing what to do with your life, follow your passion. Do not just do it for yourself but to better the world we live in.
If you would like to help make a difference and help make a change in our community, then please check out our Kickstarter Project.
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