We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Beth Derrick a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Beth, appreciate you joining us today. Do you think your parents have had a meaningful impact on you and your journey?
My parents divorced when I was eleven years old, and truth be told, I don’t remember ever seeing or hearing them fight. They are both kind, gentle and quiet types that both worked hard at their small town, not great paying jobs for decades. My dad and bonus dad have always had full-time jobs, as well as what most of us know as side hustles. Flipping, building, repairing and horse-trading are common activities from my childhood. Growing up in the country, the daughter of a banker and a waterman, I learned to channel my inner work ethic into a variety of outlets, as well as organized record keeping and salesmanship. My parents are good, honest people, and my dad taught me to always leave things better than I found them. That’s exactly what I aim to do with handmade leather goods. To turn something from a raw material into a progressively, beyond sustainable, decades long usefulness. I work everyday, whether at an event, making something, designing something or putting hours of thought into how to make something, it’s what is exciting and happy and joyful to me.
Beth, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I grew up with generations of family, up to my great-grandparents. They used everything available, made repairs to items when they broke, built their own houses and furniture, and grew their own food. While I’m not near as resourceful and handy as they were, some characteristics were passed down from our years together. I also grew up riding horses, 4-wheelers, playing in the mud, and building forts with my cousins and always having something to do outside. As an adult, living in the suburbs, life isn’t quite that exciting and fulfilling in those ways, so my creative outlet is leather working. Making items from a raw material into items that are long-lasting, useful and made with basic hand tools is deeply fulfilling to my soul.
Each item is unique, and more than half are intuitively made. I design some on paper, from a rough sketch to writing out a cut list, similar to my cousin that makes a cut list for her woodworking, but most items are intuitively made. I see a piece of leather and let it determine where to go. I make as few cuts as possible, and use all of the pieces possible to minimize waste. I continually am exploring ways in which to reduce the waste altogether.
How I got here: Back in 2012, I began traveling for work quite frequently. Not being a drinker, I’d find myself with the evenings and weekends in London to explore the local markets. One Saturday morning, at the Old Spitalfields Market, a gentleman was selling handmade leather shoes. Another was selling leather bags. I bought a pair of shoes and a bag. I was hooked. The shoes were absolutely medieval and needed a lot of wearing to break into a comfortable wear. From there, I explored handmade leather shops in Portland, Seattle, Coeur d’Alene, Singapore and everywhere I could find. I was obsessed with finding small, handmade leather brands, and still am. When the items near perfection is when I lose interest. I like the ones with a story, with some character from the start. I was backing Kickstarter campaigns and spending a significant amount of my earnings on leather goods … so naturally, the next step was to start making my own.
The first few items I made were AWFUL. The holes are not well spaced, the sewing is atrocious and the edges are horrendous. I was in love from the first terribly made item. A few years passed from the first items I made to the recent streak. I made a few here in and there starting in 2016, and in 2020 when the world was weird and closed, I started making something everyday, and haven’t really stopped. I’ve made a few thousand items at this point, and consider myself a newbie and very much still in the early stages of the learning curve. My tools have improved, as well as my understanding of what types of leather make better wallets than bags, and other learnings along the way.
I love making things, as the priority activity. I could (and have a few times) spend all day at my workbench making items, designing and sewing. These items also need to go out into the world and out of our house, to go on and live their long lives with someone that will find them useful, aesthetically pleasing and satisfying. That’s where marketing and selling come into play. I do a lot of in person events each year, mostly on the weekends. And I am shifting (ever so slowly) into physical shops and boutiques, as well as online orders. I love meeting and talking with every person that buys something from me, and can’t express how much it means, but also recognize it’s not the most sustainable model, especially considering how much time I plan to spend with our son for the next few years during his high school band career.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
The first two shows … the first two shows I set my leather goods up at to sell were not great, but they were great practice! At the first one, I sold exactly one item, for $20. At the next show, I sold exactly 0 items for $0. It obviously didn’t stop me, because I knew it was doable and there was true possibility along this path. I’ve done a few dozen events now, from small to large, and lots in between. There’ve been a few $0 days, and a few sub-$100 days, but those are few and far between. Most are worth my while as a consideration for my time and effort, and you never know who will follow up with a custom request, which is about 1/3 of my business model.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
I don’t share this often, if ever, but the sales of my leather goods goes to: 1. Purchase more raw materials to make more items: leather, thread, hardware, etc.
2. Our son’s allowance, reading material and Boy Scout career
3. Donations back to customers by way of discounts for first responders, students, teachers, etc., and donations for charity events
4. Donations to others that need a bit of help
5. Booth fees for other events
6. Marketing materials: cards, stickers, signage, etc.
Supporting small artists makes direct impacts to their quality of life. Spending $30 with a local artist instead of a gigantic corporation makes more of a difference than any of us can ever articulate.
Contact Info:
- Website: sullyandproper.supply
- Instagram: @sullyandproper.supply