Wes Baden

Fiddlehead Leatherwork LLC

Handcrafted Leather Goods and Tanned Fish Skin Jewelry

About:

Bowdoinham has been called "the craftiest town in Maine" because of the surprisingly large number of talented artists, artisans and craftspeople living and working there. Joining them is Wes Baden, who, in April 2022, opened Fiddlehead Leatherwork, Bowdoinham's first leatherworking shop, as a home-based business. Fiddlehead Leatherwork produces unique, useful and affordable leather goods and gifts including tote bags, purses, wallets, key fobs, passport holders, eyeglass cases, and holiday sleigh bells. All items are made from genuine, high-quality leather and are created one at a time using traditional leatherworking tools and techniques. Fiddlehead Leatherwork has also begun producing a line of pendants, bracelets and jewelry incorporating tanned fish skin in a wide variety of eye-catching colors. Typically, fish processing plants have discarded fish skin as trash, but again today, as in centuries past, it is recognized as an excellent byproduct for making shoes, articles of apparel and decorative objects of all kinds. The fish skins that Fiddlehead Leatherwork uses in its creations include salmon from Western Canada and both red fish and spotted wolffish from Iceland.

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