Whose work inspires you?

[CowboyDon]

My inspiration is a man named Ben Moody - I have been very fortunate to have a small collection of his work. I look at it and

I wonder how did he do this or that and I am simply amazed. When I met him I yanked an old wallet out that I did when I was

18 and carried for 30 years and said "I do leather too" - he was the nicest guy, he looked at this thing and actually told me "you do

good work too" - what a nice thing to say when holding a wallet I carried forever, even though it was not carved very good.

I have 5-6 belts and a handful of other orignals and a very very nice carving of a lady holding flowers that Ben did, also numerous

doodle pages and midas pages.

Also I am inspired by our own TomSwede - The work he turns out is classic. I currently am patterning alot of my stuff

after items I see from TomSwede.

But like the others have said there all way way to many inspirations on this website. You can get to the point where you

see something and you dont even have to look at who made it and you will know, however there are also times they will

suprise you and step outside their comfort zone and still hit a home run.

[Grunt]

For all around jaw dropping leather work Peter Main is of course on my list.

As far as knife sheaths go Sandy Morrisey, Paul Long, Gary Graley, David Abramson(http://www.liftersleather.com), Dwayne Puckett (http://www.armoralleather.com), Dave Cole(who is a member here), and Kenny Rowe(http://www.rowesleather.com) do the kind of work I aspire to. Not only do all of these gentleman do fine sheath work they are generous with their knowledge as well.

As far as western/saddle work there are too many folks on this board to mention. Although when I think I would like to try builing a saddle I think of the saddle Troy West built for President Bush, as the gold standard.

I really want to take up boot making. So I would have to say that D.W. Frommer and Carl Chappel come to mind as inspiration.

[outcast]

Hape, and Xian

[CitizenKate]

Here are a couple that nobody has mentioned yet...

Leatherwood Designs (Rod Stanger in Australia)

Art-Goldberg (Michael & Vera Goldberg in Israel)

Kate

[hidepounder]

For me, the toolers that come to mind first are: Troy West, Bill Gardner, Chester Hape, Jim Jackson and Travis Stillson. I was also really impressed with a piece from 2shews(sp?) that Johanna posted. I love Peter Main's work, even though he's not a western tooler, because he is such a great designer and mechanic.

[JohnBarton]

<br />For me, the toolers that come to mind first are: Troy West, Bill Gardner, Chester Hape, Jim Jackson and Travis Stillson. I was also really impressed with a piece from 2shews(sp?) that Johanna posted. I love Peter Main's work, even though he's not a western tooler, because he is such a great designer and mechanic.<br />

<br /><br /><br />

That Billy2Shews stuff is amazing. The one with the Cameo in the center had me mesmerized for a long time.

[wildrose]

I love Rod Stanger too. I had the honor of taking some of his pieces in for competition one year (it was shipped to me), and I was stunned at the use of color as well as the design work itself. Simply gorgeous.

[awharnessshop]

David Freedman's

www.freedmanharness.com

Martin York

www.yorksaddlery.com/default.asp

David LaSalle

http://www.lasalleharness.com/

They're all Harness makers, and some of the best at what they do!

-Andrew

[kevinhopkins]

Actually, I think Tony Laier, and Peter Main are right up there.... And I think that some of the Japanese carvers would probably be considered equally as talented. And Lionel Reed... He's done a number of car and pickup interiors in tooled leather that just blew me away...

Kevin

[Richard Hidalgo]

For me, the toolers that come to mind first are: Troy West, Bill Gardner, Chester Hape, Jim Jackson and Travis Stillson.

Bob,

Your name goes right in there with those you mentioned.

Regards,

Richard Hidalgo