Art Of The Cowgirl
In 2020, I was blessed with the honor of receiving the Art Of The Cowgirl Saddle Making Fellowship! I had made several saddles before this, but learned SO MUCH under the instruction of Nancy Martiny (Martiny Saddle Co). She learned from the famous Dale Harwood!
With the week spent with Nancy, I built a Wade saddle from start to finish, soaking up as much knowledge and feedback as possible along the way! Bringing all of that instruction home, I look forward to providing my customers with a great custom saddle that will hold up for years!
This is where it began! To build my saddle, we used TWO sides of saddle skirting.
Cantle back and ground seat started. Gullet cover glued on.
Swell cover
Blocking the skirts
I decided to build an "in-skirt rigging". Here is where we were positioning the front rigging.
Shaping the cheyenne roll.
Ground seat formed and ready to put the seat on.
What the seat looks like prior to shaping.
More seat shaping.
Seat all shaped down and cut to shape.
Starting to prep the cheyenne roll on the cantle for the binding.
Cantle binding glued on and ready to start stitching. Time to get out the muscles! haha
Carved this cross on my horn to remind me to Praise our Lord!
On the last two days, Clare McKay came and did interviews and took pictures of Nancy and I. Here is a few awesome shots she took along with her captions.
"Focus on your door, see the light and walk through."
"At present, looking to the future with guidance from the past."