Cedar & Stone

I had been coveting my colleague Julie’s leather bag for months and had to ask where she found something so luxurious, beautiful, and so very Julie—it was perfectly her. She graciously introduced me to the maker, Luke Borkenhagen, craftsman and owner of Cedar and Stone. With Luke’s greeting, “it’s so fun to have guests down here,” I felt immediately welcomed into his meticulously clean and organized basement workshop.

His line includes backpacks, bike bags, market totes, clutches, and custom pieces. He generally works on a per-order basis, carrying little inventory and making bags as orders are placed. Luke names his bags after lakes in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which makes sense once you meet him; he is a life-long devotee of the BWCAW and wears in a detailed tattoo some of the lakes he has traveled.

Luke understands the importance of durable and functional bags, and he appreciates good design.  He recognizes that bags are personal and that everyone uses them differently, saying that, much like the school bags he loved as a little kid, bags are functional but fun, and we form attachments to them over time.

To achieve both beauty and function, Luke owns every step in the creative process. For each bag, he starts with high-quality, locally sourced leather, looking for unique markings—insect bites, scars, or cattle brand marks—that might add interest and authenticity to the final product. Kodiak oil is used to give the leather its luxurious feel and its weatherproofing. “All these leather pieces are designed and templated and made from scratch. Sometimes I wonder why, but I enjoy it. I appreciate the process and the principle of it and the act of doing it, and I think it gets back to the larger idea of, you know, for a lot of this stuff I could have put money into different equipment and hired people to do it, but I like being able to do it myself.” One quickly understands that Luke is the kind of person who holds himself to exacting standards; he does something well or he doesn’t do it at all.

For Luke, the two years he devoted to creating patterns, developing templates, and testing prototypes for his early designs was an enjoyable investment. He applies this same devotion and attention to detail when constructing each bag. Once the leather is cut, the bag is sewn on a machine on which he spent years educating himself in the craft of sewing leather.

The bag’s finishing work, including straps and riveting, is among his favorite parts of the creative process. He stretches, cuts, and burnishes the straps to create a softened and smooth edge. He uses only solid copper rivets because they are the most durable fastener. Plus they look great with the leather and they patina well over time.

Luke embraces the intentional, steady, and precise nature of his work, and his workshop reflects this approach to craftsmanship. Even the bits of copper waste from the riveting work have an assigned place. The space is unadorned save for the tools, patterns, and materials he needs to create his high-quality leather bags.

What does Luke himself keep? “Personally, a lot of what I keep is canoe bags that I have and camping gear that I’ve collected over the years. And you know, I take really good care of it too.” He learned from his parents to conserve resources.

“They understood the use and function of objects and made sure they were respected, appreciated, and taken care of.”

When asked what he hopes people appreciate about his work, he replies, “That my bags work well for whatever they are used for . . . whether it’s for camping or for a person in the city or for everyday use.  I just feel it is important to offer objects that will last a long time, for a variety of principled reasons. Things that over time you appreciate for what it is or its function compared to maybe a modern consumer attitude of buying something cheap and discarding it, not respecting the process it took to make it, the material, or the environmental impact.”

When was the first time or last time you bought yourself a bag you just loved? Was it for a special reason? Or was it just because you saw it and had to have it? If its been awhile (or never!), we recommend visiting Cedar and Stone’s website.

[Photography by Moon Lake Multimedia. All rights reserved.]