Traditional Western with a Refined Touch

Posted on July 27, 2008 by Stuart Kerty Filed Under Cowboy, Handmade, Luxury | Leave a Comment

Clint Orms Engravers & Silversmiths aren’t your usual belt buckle makers. Clint has elevated the craftsmanship of belt buckles beyond traditional rodeo trophies to heirloom-quality jewelry, without losing touch with the true Western heritage.

Clint’s learned much of his trade from his father, who retired from rodeo competition in the 1950s and went on to design western clothing for the landmark cowboy shop, The Cow Lot, in Wichita Falls, Texas, which closed recently after an amazing 54 year run.

Clint started polishing belt buckles at 12 years old for his father’s company and went on to hand-tooling belts and eventually designing his own buckles by 15. Mix into this his saddle-making and silversmith skills and you can see the influences that guide his work.

While many of Clint’s creations follow traditional Western imagery, his artistry has led him into much more elegant and ornate designs. He now crafts his designs using sterling silver, 14 and 18 carat gold in different colors. While some of his designs cost a few hundred dollars, others feature diamonds, sapphires, emeralds and rubies and can sell for many thousands of dollars.

But the gold and the jewels are not the only reason for the lofty prices. Some of his more complex designs are made from hundreds of individual pieces, all meticulously soldered together, engraved and polished, taking up to 200 hours of painstaking labor. This effort goes deeper than just producing a nice product or cool fashion trend. He sees his buckles as heirloom quality that would be passed down from generation to generation.

Never Buy Another Belt Buckle Again!

Posted on July 23, 2008 by Stuart Kerty Filed Under Collecting Belt Buckles, Fun, Novelty, Video | Leave a Comment

The Egokast is a video-playing buckle with 3″ LCD screen. Sure, you might be able to show videos on it. Or maybe you can run their exclusive looping Egovideo graphics that look strangely like screensavers from the early nineties or lava lamps from the late sixties. Or if you really want people staring at your crotch for hours on end, perhaps you can preview a few pirated blockbusters before they come out on the big screen.

We are not going to bore you with the specs. You got the wrong site baby. We don’t care about the megaflurtz, giga-pixars, or screen revolutions. If you want the techno-geek stuff, go check out Gizmodo elsewhere on the interweb. We’re here to talk about buckles.

Egokast has made leaving the house wearing only one belt buckle as archaic as sporting a Walkman with only one cassette. What if your tastes change while you are out? Whether tapes or buckles, maybe you can carry one or two extras in your pocket, but you can’t carry your entire collection everywhere you go!

Or can you?

The real undiscovered killer app here is for collectors to be able to wear all their buckles, all the time. Simply photograph all your buckles and run them in an endless slideshow! Or for even more control, create “playlists” based on themes that fit your outfit, such as rodeo, rhinestone, or retro.

Yes, the Egokast is the buckle collector’s answer to the iPod. Instead of 10,000 songs in your pocket, it’s 10,000 buckles on your belt!

Slip into the Turquoise

Posted on July 20, 2008 by Stuart Kerty Filed Under Abstract, Handmade, Native American, Silver | Leave a Comment

Ric Charlie is an accomplished Navajo artist and jewelry designer of the Tsi’naajínii (Black-Streaked-Wood People) and Tábaahá (Edgewater) clans of Arizona. Ric’s mastery as a silversmith adds a level of jewelry-like quality to his belt buckles and he has taken the craft of Tufa stone casting to a whole new level.

Tufa is compressed rock made of porous volcanic ash used to make high quality cast jewelry. The Tufa stone is sliced in half and the intricate design is carved into one side and the two halves are then joined back together and molten sterling silver is pored through the sprue hole into the casting cavity. This technique enables very detailed designs and imparts a unique texture from the coarse rock.

Sedona Indian Jewelry offers some beautiful examples of Ric’s work that exemplify what a master can produce from this technique. High quality Royston Turquoise, Blue Diamond Turquoise, and Lapis stones are inlaid in polished silver framing that makes them stand out from the color and texture of the traditional Navajo geometric shapes beneath them.

And a rarity in belt buckles, Ric has cast a design on the reverse depicting the sun, clouds, and buttes of the Arizona desert. While only a very few people will ever know what is on the back of your belt buckle, this extra measure of detail demonstrates the true artistry of this Ric Charlie’s work.

Buckle of Shards

Posted on July 13, 2008 by Stuart Kerty Filed Under Abstract, Artistic, Handmade, Special Buckles, Video | Leave a Comment

Paul Pearman boasts a wide variety of creative talents, including graphic design, sculpture, stained glass, painting and mosaics. He even made a living for a while knocking off the work of Van Gogh. Inspired by art nouveau and impressionist styles, he carefully places the glass in his mosaics to emulate the movement and direction of brush strokes. In addition to cut glass, he embellishes his work with semi-precious stones and exotic materials including coral, opals, turquoise, emeralds, jasper, ancient shark’s teeth, and the occasional carved skull.

Just as the impressionist masters before him, before art, Pearman started out as a kick boxer and a skateboarder. He captured the 1989 Guinness World Record for the jumping his skateboard over 26 barrels, snatching the record away from the previous title holders, Renoir and Monet, who purportedly turned to painting to console themselves over their loss.

Anyway, back to belt buckles. Paul was caught off guard by the success of his custom-designed mosaic belt buckles, which have garnered placement in high-end boutiques and galleries and attracting celebrity clients who pay from $500 to $3500 for his work. The response has created an endless workload for him, trapping him in self-described “belt buckle purgatory” in his basement studio, as he scrambles to keep up with demand. What the video below for the back story.

So visit New School Mosaics if you would like to own one of these unique creations or simply because you think it would be cool to keep Paul toiling away in his basement a little longer.

The Great White West

Posted on July 9, 2008 by Stuart Kerty Filed Under Cowboy, History | Leave a Comment

When most people think about cowboys and the wild west, they tend to think of the western United States. However, the Canadian west has an equally rich cowboy heritage that is relived each July at the Calgary Stampede, a celebration of the early days of roping, riding, and rodeo. Each year, well over a million people turn out to whoop it up, Canuck cowpoke style.

To represent this year’s Stampede the organizers wanted an image that reflected Canada’s western heritage and values. They commissioned Canadian artist Doug Levitt, who painted A Man of His People to honor the culture of the First Nations (the aboriginal tribes of Canada) and offer a sense of nostalgia and respect for the Stampede’s long history with the Plains people. To ensure historical accuracy, the artist worked closely with native elders to portray as many Plains tribes as possible. Levitt’s artwork is reproduced on the 2008 limited edition gold- and silver-plated belt buckle commemorating the event.

There’s still time to buy the buckle, but you better saddle up fast if you want to join this year’s stampede where, until July 13, the wild wild west is still part of the great white north…