Leather Anarchy

For years, I have treated art like an open invitation to experiment. I have worked with everything from leather and lace to zippers, mirrors, broken glass, and even pieces of metal. If something carried texture, history, or the possibility of becoming something unexpected, I wanted to find a way to place it on a canvas.

Leather Anarchy began as ordinary brown strips of leather. I cut them, shredded them, twisted them, and burned them. I covered them with spray paint, then attached and intertwined each piece across the original 15 × 30 canvas with a hot glue gun that burned far more than the leather and canvas along the way.

Once everything was attached, I painted over the leather by hand, deepening the shadows and pulling out every torn edge, fold, and scar. But even after all of that, the piece still did not feel finished.

Later, I found an old zipper and transformed it with stain and paint until the metal appeared rusted and weathered. I worked it into the leather as if it had always belonged there, partially hidden beneath the layers, holding together something that looked as though it had already been torn apart.

After all that work, I carried the finished piece outside to my garbage. Where countless pieces I created ended up before I understood the value of my own voice. They were experiments, mistakes, strange ideas, and pieces I assumed no one would ever want to see. I thought they were too weird, too dark, too different, or simply too much.

The truth is, I was not only judging the artwork that way. I was also judging myself.

I saw myself in those discarded pieces. Unusual. Damaged. Difficult to understand. Too different to belong anywhere beautiful. I believed that if other people might not understand what I created, then perhaps it was not worth sharing at all.

Looking back now, I realize how much power I gave to opinions that had never even been spoken.

I was deciding that others would reject my work before I ever gave them the chance to see it. More importantly, I was rejecting the most honest parts of myself before allowing them to exist in the light.

What I once called weird, I now recognize as original. What I once called damaged, I now see as layered. What I once hid away, I now understand was one of a kind.

And that is exactly what made it beautiful.

Leather Anarchy was never meant to be polished or delicate. It was created from leather that had been torn, burned, twisted, painted, and forced into a new form. The rusted zipper does not repair it or hide what happened to it. It becomes part of the story, a reminder that not everything broken needs to be returned to what it was before.

Sometimes destruction reveals a depth that perfection never could.

I am grateful that I photographed the pieces I once sent away to a landfill. Although many of the originals are gone, their stories survived. Today, I can bring those forgotten works back into the light and share them in print, no longer ashamed of the strange and unconventional artist who created them.

Because she was never too weird.

She was simply becoming herself.

Leather Anarchy is available as a fine art print or canvas print in sizes from 8 × 8 to 20 × 20. It can also be printed on metal which I personally think would look incredible. I have not priced that option yet, but if you are interested, I will gladly look into it for you.

The price below is for a 20x20 print on canvas. Contact us for additional sizes and print formats.