EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) – Local leather artisan Rafael Batrez has been honing his craft for nearly five years and is now incorporating it into his art shop where he offers people the opportunity to learn the basic principles of leatherwork.
“My journey as a leather artisan began four to five years ago. I was working on a leather motorcycle seat and I didn’t do it right. It became terrible. But with that came all these bags and wallets that I just continued to make, and everyone keeps liking not just my product, but the craft itself,” Batrez said.
Batrez took over El Paso’s Finest Art and Souvenir Shop about a year ago. Located on Mesa Street next to the San Jacinto Plaza in Downtown El Paso, the art shop provides a hub for Borderland artists to sell their work.
But Batrez recently began incorporating his own art into the shop. He began Timothy & Luke Leather just four years ago, naming it after his two children, as he developed his skills as a leather artisan.
Several years removed from that leather motorcycle seat, Batrez now makes fine custom-made leather purses, bags, wallets, and cigar cases amongst other leather items.
What Batrez described as a therapeutic craft for him, he’s now offering classes on how to make leather objects like wallets every first and last Thursday of the month for $50, or $100 to make belts.
He believes learning the craft of making leather not only can be therapeutic for other people, but can become a practical skill.
“It’s a good thing to learn these leather crafts because you could just apply it in every aspect of your life and learn how to just fix things, patch things, your furniture. If your sofa has a hole in it, you could hand-sew all that and it’ll last forever,” Batrez said.
The most important tool of a leather craftsman? Batrez said it is his hands, and the trade-off is dealing with a lot of cuts.
But leather has a finer quality, and Batrez said it gives a person the opportunity to create something that could last a lifetime or even generations.
“With leather, it lasts forever. If you take care of it, condition it, it could last hundreds of years, which your kids will probably be fighting over when you pass on,” Batrez said.
His art shop also offers classes with other Borderland artists whose work he sells, including ceramic art and painting.
For more information on their classes or any of their events, you can follow their social media:
@shopepfinest and @timothylukeleather.
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