Cary Schwarz Custom Saddles

Old School Craftsmanship and Artistry

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Not too many

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“By listing your website with our locator service, you can increase traffic on your site, and drive sales higher.” “I’m a craftsman in a one man shop with a back log of work ahead of me and I don’t want to drive more sales.” “We can offer you a free listing in our directory for […]

Renaissance

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I was asked to write a little ditty for the Western Folklife Center in Elko, Nevada. They’re the folks who are the legs beneath the annual Cowboy Poetry Gathering. The current show that is on display there features cowboy craftsmen who are under the age of 40. (Ok, so I barely missed that one!) This […]

Old Stuff

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Call me crazy, but I think it is important (and interesting) to know whose shoulders I’m standing on here. Several years ago I bought a book that was written in the mid-ninteenth century by a Brit named Owen Jones. Jones was an academic, an architect, and art critic who studied the decoration found in architecture […]

Saddle Trees

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I’ve used Warren Wright’s trees since 1992. I happened to be in the right place at the right time when Dale and Karron Harwood were looking for saddlemakers they knew who would do justice to Warren’s trees. Harwoods made an arrangement with Warren to import his trees from New Zealand for distribution to hand-picked saddlers […]

Leather Crafters and Saddlers Journal

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  Here is an article I wrote for the current issue of the Leather Crafters and Saddlers Journal: On October 12, 2013, soft-spoken Robert Raber made his way methodically through the Traditional Cowboy Arts Association gallery at the National Cowboy Museum. The Cowboy Crossings sale and exhibition in Oklahoma City has become a must see […]

The Horn

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I love to do finish work on a saddle. This is a large wooden horn on a swell fork tree…something you would expect on a Wade rather than a 13″ front. I used some polished American six cord linen thread and sewed it at eight stitches to the inch. The edge is finished with glycerin […]

Bruce

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I traded my old boss Gerald Richie for this mule a couple years ago. He’s a dandy. I was thinking lately about when I first met Gerald way back when. It’s pretty cool to have a mule that he raised and a nice picture to look at on a winter’s night. I’ve ridden a few […]

Western Heritage Awards

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I was asked recently by the National Cowboy Museum and Western Heritage Center in Oklahoma City if I would grant permission to use the floral carving design from this year’s TCAA saddle. They are planning on using detail pictures of my carving designs for a variety of events for 2014 including table runners, docent directories, […]

Time is Money

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  Sharon Griffes Tarr is a veteran artist who writes a blog that I stumbled onto the other day. I thought it had some interesting things to say and secured permission to copy her words here. You could replace the word ‘artist’ with the words ‘craftsman’ and the thoughts still hold up very well.   […]

A Friend Remembered

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It was December 2, 1993. The winter winds in the upper Snake River plain were bitter, raw and angry. But there was roping to be done. I was determined to get rich in the purebred Galloway business and had cooked a deal to lease some cows to help build our numbers. The cattle I had […]