A Feather in your...Chair?

A few weekends ago, the husband and I made a trip up to Draco Gardens. Mostly because the husband required the superior welding services of Bob, who, as most of us garden bloggers know, is a welder and always has cool projects going on. We drove up to his shop and got out of the car. As I'm standing there, I notice this chair:
Wait, what's that funny cracking on the back of the chair? It's a...Feather?


Bob says that he got the chair from someone else (feather-ed already) and has no idea how the chair cracked in a perfect peacock feather pattern - the husband and I were postulating that maybe a wet feather was somehow pressed on the leather to cause the cracking...or it could just be that someone took a knife to the back of the chair to create the look.