Originally published in Points West magazine
Winter 2005
Saddlemakers, Artistry in Leather and Silver
By Gordon Andrus
Guest Author
From earliest times, horsemen have embellished their saddles and bridles—and every piece of tack in between. Through the centuries this decorative impulse has shown itself in a variety of “equine accoutrements.”
Horse gear has been trimmed with elaborate knot work, or braiding of leather, rawhide, and horsehair. Saddles have been dressed with lush appliqué and quilting using brightly colored silk thread. Some saddles even sport carefully spun threads of gold and silver. Gold and silversmiths have plied their trades by creating ornate castings and engraved work to decorate saddles, harnesses, and horse drawn carriages. Some of the earliest saddle horns were cast of metal in the shape of an eagle’s head.
With all that has been done to decorate saddlery, the most prevalent method by far has been the use of various techniques to emboss or stamp a design into the leather itself. This, combined with the application of engraved silver trim, encompasses the bulk of the approach to decorative saddle making throughout the last two centuries in the American West. Early saddlemakers of the Northern Plains, like E.L. Gallatin, Frank A. Meanea, and the Collins Brothers—Gilbert and John—were trained in the Midwest during the 1850s and 1860s. They were among the multitudes of westward moving pioneers of the time, moving into a country that would need everything they could produce. These saddlemakers eventually combined the overarching design influence of the greater Victorian period with the Mexican saddles and tack they found in their new home.
The nineteenth century was a time when everyday items were covered with lavish floral embellishment, and the atmosphere was ripe for the development of a new kind of saddle, the American Stock Saddle. Over time, the work of individual saddle-makers developed along lines that were unique to particular regions of the West. In California, for example, a single cinch was favored, whereas in the Northern Plains, saddles were rigged with a front and a rear cinch.
Cowboys in a given locale would note the outfit that a fellow hand was using, and if the gear performed well, they would, in turn, request the same for themselves from local saddle-makers. In this way, the form of a given saddle type became somewhat standardized in that region. In Wyoming, the Northern Plains type of saddle became known as the Cheyenne saddle, as influential makers resided in that city.
Working cowhands were more interested in the functional form of the saddles they used than in ornamental embellishments. Still, decoration seems to have been highly favored when it could be afforded as in the case of one Texas cowboy who spoke glowingly of his “twenty-seven-dollar star-spangled saddle.” An interesting result of these regional dynamics, besides the functional aspects of saddlery, was the development of territorial decorative styles as artisans honed their skills and passed them on to apprentices in the same shops.
In Wyoming today, the tooling styles of a group of craftsmen from the Sheridan area are known as Sheridan, or more broadly, Wyoming-style leather carving. This style has found increasing popularity and has even spread across the oceans. The layout is related to traditional silver engraving and consists primarily of a series of intertwined circles. These circles are described by a variety of leaves, petals, and vines, connecting one circle to the one next to it. Each circle is centered with a flower blossom. The blossom most identified with Wyoming carving is a stylized wild rose, though in a growing volume of work a wide variety of blossoms are used.
It is curious that this art, born over a century ago, is so strong today. As the rest of the world’s artistic trends have moved away from what might be called “the Victorian,” the artisans of the American West have taken these influences and molded them into a tradition of their very own—a tradition that just may thrive for another hundred years.
Gordon Andrus has been a professional saddlemaker since 1985. He learned to braid horse gear as a boy from his neighbor, Lorenzo Larsen, and elderly sheepherder in central Utah. Andrus also took advantage of the opportunities to learn horsemanship from Bud Hendrickson, another elderly gentleman in the community who was famous in that region for his championship abilities.
Andrus went on to work in saddle shops in Utah and Colorado, and eventually earned a Master of fine Arts degree from the New York Sate College of Ceramics at Alfred University in New York. He has spent many years working with saddle horses, draft horses and oxen, and has made an in-depth study of many original museum collection pieces of gear from the nineteenth century. While living in Cody, Wyoming, when Andrus authored this article, he owned Sage Creek Stock Saddle Co. He and his family have since moved to Salt Lake City, Utah.
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