The studio
Shawn Cook makes things by hand.
Leather artist. Wildland firefighter. World-class cyr wheel performer. He picked up a needle and a swivel knife somewhere along the way and never put them down.
The studio keeps its own time. Half-formed blocks on every surface, a teapot warm too long, something always getting stitched before a show that started an hour ago. Hats first, ceremony second, ordinary somewhere far behind.
Shawn trained with monks in China as a young adult, then earned his way through one of the world's leading circus schools. From there his life forked. Half the year he's on a fireline somewhere out west, working seventy-two hours straight in the dirt and the smoke. The other half he's on stage, spinning inside a steel hoop the size of a man — moving in a way most people only ever see once.
Leather is what he comes home to. Top hats first — the kind of hats you wear once and remember forever. Then bags, goggles, masks, crowns. Anything a body can wear that needs to hold a story.
Each piece is hand-cut from a single sheet of vegetable-tanned leather. Wet-formed over a sculpted block, saddle-stitched in waxed linen, dyed and painted in the studio.
Built for stages, ceremonies, unbirthdays, and the kind of evenings you don't forget.