One of my main goals for my work in Bolivia was to find uses for the mountains of scraps left over from Cynthia Escobar's leather works. It was so fantastic to be able to grab a handful of soft colorful leather bits and play with them until something real emerged. What made this project even more engaging was that creating a product from the scraps would help Cynthia's business save money.
Using little bits of leather as accents puts a spotlight on their rich colors and textures. It also allowed us to pick and choose the most perfect spots of color and texture. The skins always include unusable sections due to defects on the animal or imperfections in processing, so the flexibility of working with small pieces helps to maximize usable material.
See more pillow photos at Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/allicoate/