I like to listen to the rhythmic tap, tap, tap of the sprinklers in the pasture and watch their spray break up and cover the forty foot orb each bird is responsible for. You’d think I’d hate sprinkler pipe. My first job at age twelve was moving three inch diameter hand lines in the fields […]

Those who keep up with what I’ve got going know that I am a founding member of the Traditional Cowboy Arts Association. A group of us got together in 1998 and came up with this idea that seems to have taken on a life of its own. Like any journey in life, its had its […]

I just shipped out my 2014 TCAA saddle to the National Cowboy Museum yesterday. It’s always a good feeling to get a demanding project finished and off the stand. The last sixteen summers have been consumed with doing work for our show that opens in October. I say ‘summers’ but actually most of the work […]

Contrary to popular belief, I don’t live, breathe, and eat leather…at least not all the time. One of the many small things I do on a regular basis is a little time with dirt under my fingernails. It’s a way of keeping grounded. As Malcolm Gladwell once said “we cannot separate ourselves from where we’ve […]

This spring and summer seems like the busiest time this year. Just one of the projects I’m working on is this year’s TCAA saddle. In my visits with my co-conspirator Scott Hardy we came up with this idea of a dyed border that would frame up the saddle. It is always an anxious process when […]

I taught a design and floral carving class at Christoval, Texas in June. We had ten students who spent one day working on paper learning principles of design and a systematic way of laying visual information down. The second day featured instruction on swivel knife work, and stamping tool selection and use. I was very […]

The first village liberated by the Americans was St. Mere Eglise. This little village is much as it was seventy years ago. The film ‘The Longest Day’ starring Robert Mitchum and John Wayne featured the story that unfolded here. Pfc John Steele made history when he, in the dark hours before daylight on June 6 […]

West of Omaha Beach lies Utah Beach where a far less bloody battle took place here on D-Day. Utah Beach would serve as the port of entry for allied forces. Vast numbers of personnel, materiel, jeeps and tanks began their trek to Berlin here.

Seventy years ago today, allied forces successfully cracked Hitler’s Atlantic Wall at Normandy. Specially trained Army Rangers landed near a point of land called Pointe du Hoc where their mission was to dispatch the 88 mm gun that was positioned on the cliff high above the sea. The Rangers achieved their objective in scaling the […]