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Time and Attention to Detail
Living historians run the spectrum from casual, once a year buckskinners to serious historians who do extensive research and who take time and pay attention to the smallest details of the persona they are portraying. To do it "right" requires time and attention to detail. As living historians we emulate the ways of our forebears. I used the word emulate instead of imitate because while we are passionate about our chosen interest, and we look forward to putting on the buckskins again and stepping away from the modern - some call it the "real" - world, most often we do so with a sly nod toward modernity.
We emulate their ways. We escape for a week or a weekend back to a time when you could leave your doors unlocked. A time when there were no strangers, just folks you haven't met yet, when the routine of life included chopping wood, fetching water, and making a fire. It was a time when people valued creativity and everyone made some kind of art. A time when it was more important to be able to read the weather and seasons than it was to read or write, when the skills that got a family through the day or through the winter proved the value of a practical education. And it was a time when a keen eye and steady hand meant the difference between suffering and survival; when a man's word was his bond and his most important tools were his own two hands, his hawk, knife and longarm; and the ball and powder to charge it with. We emulate them; and we try to recreate the life of bygone days.
Back then gear was made well but used hard and expected to wear out after a fashion. It was, therefore, a treasure if a powderhorn survived the rigors of use long enough to be handed down through the family. Those horns, rough and simple though they may have been were treated like sacred icons, talismans of the struggle for life, and touchstones for a family's history.
At Shinin' Times Powderhorns I create one of a kind, contemporary engraved powderhorns that honor those traditions yet acknowledge our times. Always striving for perfection in the execution of the architecture as well as the art, it is my goal to produce for the reenactor of exceptional taste or the discriminating collector, an heirloom quality piece that will serve the client now and evoke their memory generations from now. The effort is a seamless blending of traditional architecture with highly detailed engraving impossible to execute in great great great great granddad's day. My horns are meant to be living historians in their own right; revealing nuances of their owner to successive generations. Time and attention to detail. My horns reflect that. I collaborate with my clients to produce a work of functional art, as at home in the field as it is in your collection. All it takes is time and attention to detail.
Please come inside and take a look at the results. If I may have the pleasure of making you a horn, please feel free to contact me.
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