Lakeport >> In a detached garage set 50 feet back from a Soda Bay Road, a supple leather horse saddle sits among motorcycles and tool belts. Carved into the leather are six unique curling flowers, repeated again and again in a flowing, mirrored design. Silver, debossed with similar delicate petals and vines, glints against the brown cowhide. Deep brown leather strips hang like tassels and deceptively soft alligator skin serves as the seat. It’s smoothed to a high shine, and though it sits slightly above the carved leather, it’s intentional, Gene Kirkendall explained. The rider will smooth it down with wear.
This is the $20,000 saddle that took first place back in December at the 6th Annual Art of the Cowboy Makers Contest in Las Vegas, a national competition for contemporary crafters of bits and spurs, boots, rope cans, chaps, hats, rope bags and saddles. It’s a prestigious award, which came with not only bragging rights, but a glimmering belt buckle to wear or display.
Kirkendall’s winning saddle is a piece of art — and it is indeed art, much more so than a practical riding saddle — which required upwards of 500 hours to complete.
The hardest part came before he even picked up his carving knife. First, he had to sketch out the flowered pattern. The drawing process took between 40 and 60 hours, Kirkendall estimated.
“It takes a lot of erasers,” he said, laughing.
But the meticulous drawing is worth it, because once Kirkendall begins carving with his swivel knife, he can’t falter. Make a single mistake on a piece of leather and it can ruin the entire piece. There is no room for error in leather work. “It’s not something you can do every day,” Kirkendall said. “If you do it every day you get tired and make mistakes. Once you make a mistake in leather there’s no erasing it or painting over it.”
Beside the impressive saddle, dozens of rolls of leather lay curled beneath a long wooden worktable. A smaller room resting inside the spacious garage serves as a repository for a least a hundred delicate carving tools and an spare pair of extra-strength glasses. Hides of ostrich, kangaroo, stingray, lizard, even shark, crowd a shelf running the length of one wall.
For 16 years, this is where Kirkendall has whittled away at his masterpieces. He decided to try his hand at leather thanks to Don McCown, another local leather worker. The two met at a craft show at the Lake County Fairgrounds where McCown was selling handmade wallets and checkbooks. Kirkendall asked if McCown had considered teaching a class in the subject, because he would love to give it a try. McCown happily complied.
Of the 12 students who signed up for the class, Kirkendall was the only one to stick with it. This is a very common trend, Kirkendall said. Leather working is much more challenging and demanding than many people realize.
Unfortunately, this means it’s also something of a dying art. Add in the cost and labor involved in making an item from leather, and it’s easy to see why leather workers are hard to come by.
“There’s not a lot of money in it,” Kirkendall said, explaining that he can only charge a customer maybe $10 and hour, considering how many hours he puts into an item. “Imports are so much cheaper to buy.”
Of course, there’s quality to consider. People may be hesitant to spend $90 on a handmade wallet when they can purchase something similar from a box store for a quarter of the price, but they’re usually not receiving the same level of craftsmanship, or even materials.
Horse saddles on sale at feed shops, those are crafted with cheaper leather than Kirkendall uses, he said — he buys every one of his hides from leather shows. “It just goes back to quality,” he said. “I buy from the best and forget the rest.”
But Kirkendall is not in leather work for the money. If he were, he wouldn’t keep giving his work away. He’s donated two of the dozen saddles he’s made and is constantly gifting people wallets and checkbooks for special occasions. It gives him a special sense of satisfaction when his friends and family see their names or initials carved into the leather. For him, this is worth more than money.
Kirkendall enjoys the art of leather work for the challenge, the sense of accomplishment, and also the knowledge that he’s doing work most others don’t.
For years Kirkendall made wallets and purses, but hadn’t tried something much more complicated. Then he was told that a saddle is the ultimate in leather work. Not one to pass up a challenge, Kirkendall pulled out his carving knife and went to work.
He entered competitions to begin gaining recognition. There are very few people in Lake County who would pay $20,000 for a saddle, Kirkendall said, but hardcore cowboy enthusiasts in the south are a different story. “In order to get known around the country, you’ve got to enter yourself in these shows against other people who do saddles to show how good you really are,” he explained. “You’ve gotta be good at it, and you’ve gotta compete with other people who are just as good as you are.”
Kirkendall’s talent with leather is obvious. Aside from his win in Las Vegas, he took home fourth place at a world-wide contest in Wyoming in 2010. He missed third by one point and first by five, proving just how tight the competition is at these events.
And the judges are nothing if not sticklers; Kirkendall was knocked down two points at the Art of the Cowboy Makers Contest for just two, centimeter-wide stitches, which are barely crooked to the naked eye.
But intense critique is welcome. Though it seems impossible to improve on his prize-winning saddle, Kirkendall strives to continually push, and exceed, his artistic limits.
“You should go to the sky and push yourself,” he said. “Life is to enjoy and challenge yourself.”
Jennifer Gruenke can be reached at 900-2019.
