One rainy day during elk season, TJ and I were driving on the creek road above our house. We rounded a curve not far up the road and found ourselves in a front row seat with two bighorn rams fighting. They were no more than twenty feet off the road. Fatigued from hours of struggle, […]
Archives for 2013
Observations
The two young school girls persisted in drawing the horse’s ears like an upside down W. They were then shown how to look at the picture they were trying to draw rather than looking inside their own mind at how they thought those ears should be. “See the angles of the horse’s ears?” I encouraged. After […]
The Big Headstall
This browband headstall was made for a dear friend and customer. I just love doing this kind of work…it is challenging and rewarding at the same time. It is entirely hand sewn with waxed linen at eight stitches per inch. I finished the edges with a hot beeswax technique that has become a standard for […]
Floral Carved Wade
The Randy Bock Saddle
It’s not often you make a saddle like this one for a ranch manager to use, but as a saddlemaker, this is as good as it gets. This saddle is at the height of what I do in my vocation: Artistic expression blended with the best functional aspects I can muster as well. There is […]
Hot Waxed Edges
I spent a bit of time in France in 2009 learning from a professional leatherworker/saddlemaker in Saumur. Jean Luc Parisot is a great craftsman and a generous friend who works for the French military furnishing a variety of leather goods for their horse program. He does work for the world famous Cadre Noir in Saumur […]