Heidi Harner

“Why I paint what I paint: Horses are beautiful in their line, form and movement; dogs bring much joy to our lives, and when I paint landscapes outside on location, I feel I am nearest to God than most other times.” Heidi Harner


The plains of North Dakota inspired Heidi Harner’s appreciation of wide open spaces. Her love of animals she attributes to her mother who was instrumental in establishing their local Humane Society in Minot. Heidi melded the two with a life long interest in art. She first studied watercolor then found her niche in oil. She enjoys both plein air and studio painting.

Her favorite subjects are landscapes, especially scenes of North Dakota, nature in general, farm animals, dogs and horses.

Horses have become a driving force in her art. She spends as much time as possible on the Nokota Horse Conservancy in south central North Dakota. There she studies the horses, how they interact, their surroundings and everything she can
possibly learn from them. She spends hours on the prairie capturing their movements in the different light on canvas with oil. When she can’t be there in person, she uses the many photographs she takes to work from in her studio.

In the fall of 2010, Heidi took a class from David Slonim. In the class she studied the masters and now as she says, "Is obsessed with reading up on John Singer Sargent, Andrew Wyeth, Anton Mauve, Mary Cassatt, Joaquin Sorolla, Carolyn Anderson (a living master artist) and more. You can see the influence of the class and especially that of Andrew Wyeth in her newest work, "Early Evening Barn" and John Singer Sargent's Arabian horses in "Bedouin Tack".

Heidi has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Purdue University in Indiana and uses her experiences as a professional art conservation framer to help refine her natural abilities as an artist. She is an associate member of the Women Artists of the West (www.waow.org) and has been featured in a number of publications including, The Cowboy Way, Horses in Art Magazine and GaWaNi Pony Boy’s book, “Of Women and Horses: More Reflections of the Magical Bond,” published by Bowtie Press, 2005. Her work can be seen online at Dakota Rocks Studio, Contemporary Western Design.com or on her website.

Diane Ross

Cowgirl Furniture Maker

by Thea Marx

With Diane Ross’s adept hands and keen sense of balance and design, old barns become charming cabinets and standing birch trees a bed gracing magazine pages worldwide. This extraordinary furniture maker is one of the few women in the business and she has established a niche with her elegant rustic furniture that doesn’t need a log home for comfort, it’s perfectly at ease in nearly every environment including ultra contemporary.

For thirty years, her intrepid spirit has wandered the West in search of inspiration and materials. Her experiences in the Southwest and on Montana ranches driving her practical, but creative process to pieces that always pay homage to her first, a bent willow chair. A furniture maker, she was sure she would never be growing up. Her father was a cabinet maker, but wouldn’t let her in the shop, she was a girl.

As a young, single mother she struck out to follow her dreams which meant studying Range Management and Soil Science at Montana State University in Bozeman. On the way, she found herself living in a tent in West Yellowstone, Montana with her two children waiting tables to pay the bills and save for college. Her need to be close to her children drove her to search for ways they could be together more than not. She turned down a coveted job with the BLM in favor of making a chair she saw on the cover of Mother Earth Magazine. The idea of making furniture meant they could be together gathering willows, searching the area for materials and creating collectively. One chair led to many and many led to a following. When the government registries where closed after graduation proclaiming no jobs were available, she didn’t even miss a beat, she kept on making furniture.

From a willow chair to elaborate cabinets is not easy for someone who has not been trained as a cabinet maker, but true to her spirit, she taught herself. “People would say ‘I like this. Can you do it?’” says Diane. “I would research it, figure it out and make it. That is how I learned.” Eventually her father came to help her in her shop in Willow Creek, Montana, acknowledging what she was doing was “real” woodworking and enjoyed his time with his daughter as she created influential pieces in the world of western furniture.

On the river bottom where Lewis and Clark camped and where bears, moose, elk and coyotes are prevalent, Diane creates pieces like the Cowgirl Cupboard: pretty on the outside, practical on the inside. The simple cabinet is hand rubbed with a red patina, carved willow designs and hand forged horse head draw pulls. She created this piece for herself when she was working cows everyday and rising at 4 am. She needed something that would hold everything she needed for the day in one place so she could roll out of bed, dress and still have time for coffee. The piece even has a place for her halter, chinks, hat and a grate to place her boots on. Then there are pieces with names like the Gypsy Queen goes to Cody. An exquisitely, edgy piece out of reclaimed oak, fused glass doors with interior lighting, glass shelves and secret velvet lined drawer.

Unique or deadly practical, this cowgirl furniture maker has a way of making the pieces strikingly beautiful, all the while evoking the natural and that universal yearning to have nature a part of one’s living spaces.

Diane is an artist on contemporarywesterndesign.com. She was invited to attend Women Who Design the West and was inducted into the Stetson Craftsman Alliance in September 2010.

Clair Kehrberg

Saddle Making in her Soul

With a love of horses and artwork in her soul and ranching a part of her family for generations, Clair Mullins made a decision in high school; she was going to be a saddle maker. Growing up on a family cattle operation near John Day, Oregon, saddles were second nature, in fact, horseback was her preferred mode of transport. The decision was easy.

After witnessing her father question her older brother about his ambitions and plans for the future, Clair knew she would have an answer when it was her turn. A part of the family operation in a place where the closest movie theatre was 70 miles away, her love of horses was nurtured and the very nature of her life allowed her imagination to fly free.

An inborn fondness for ranch life combined with her penchant for art helped lead her to the decision to be a saddle maker. She went through the two year program at Spokane Falls Community College where she studied under the late Verlane Desgrange who was an extraordinary leather carver and saddle maker. Under Verlane she learned to draw intricate flowing patterns. Then she worked with Randy Severe at Severe Brothers Saddlery in Pendleton who taught her to draw directly on the leather. “My work is individual, I never duplicate a pattern,” says Clair. Most importantly, she says, she studied with Dale Harwood where she learned good mechanics. “Mechanics make the saddle, and he is a master.”

Today, she has been creating saddles for 9 years and owned her own shop for the last 6. Everyday, she builds saddles for the working cowboy. They are for hard days on colts and working cows in the vastness of Grant County, Oregon. On Quality Manufacturing trees, she creates her signature saddle with a slick fork tree and bucking rolls. She uses a lot of rough outs because as she says, “You stick to it better.” Her style reflects the influences from generations of ranching in the Great Basin and the Old Buckaroo including the small Cheyenne roll and the mule hide wrapped horn.

Working saddles don’t allow her to use her incredible carving skills or love of fashionable things as much as she would like so she makes gorgeous, deeply carved stylish handbags, messenger bags and furniture that allow her to integrate the flowing lines and the sleek curvy styling that is apparent but not overt in her saddles.

As of late, she has earned the nickname, "Lunatic Fringe" for the use of her brightly colored fringe on everything!! She has also been inducted into the Stetson Craftsman's Alliance and was selected for Women Who Design the West.

See her work here on ContemporaryWesternDesign.com or learn more about Clair at www.clairsaddleshop.com or call her to get your own saddle or “haute” handbag 541-620-1634.

Bob Brown Treemendous Designs

Bob Brown’s Pieces fit into Rustic Décor, Cowboy Décor or any home that has a hint of Western Design or wants one.

Near a small Indiana town where the rivers Eel and Wabash meet, is a man who auctioned off his construction equipment to become a furniture maker.

On land that’s been in his family for more than 20 years, and where arrowheads and other remnants of the Miami Indians are found, Bob Brown harvests and mills his own beautiful hardwood. He’s known around Cass County for his work and is frequently called when nuisance trees are felled so he can recover the lumber. A self-proclaimed scavenger of beautiful wood, Bob finds wood where tree trimmers work and utility companies clear branches to keep lines open.

Bob has a unique take on furniture made from hardwoods. He says, he doesn’t want it to be too perfect, but to reflect its natural beauty. Most furniture made of hardwood is planed, sanded and polished to perfection.

“To me that’s institutionalized, I like to see its natural expression, the beauty of the sapwood and its rough edges.”

Where does his inspiration come from? “ Montana. I love Montana,” he says.

Five boys later, he’s still in Indiana, but hoping the family can find their way out West someday. He and his wife Julie, a fourth grade teacher, both enjoy the outdoors and spend their free time camping, hiking and working on their property.

Bob’s grandfather clocks, dining room tables and beds are seen in homes from the Midwest to New England. Some of his most specialized pieces are found in beautiful resort homes in Colorado. To see more of Bob’s work go to ContemporaryWesternDesign.com.

David Osmundsen

Wyoming Blacksmith

David Osmundsen moved to Buffalo, Wyoming, nearly 17 years ago after a fateful summer trip brought him to the Big Horn Mountains. While doing summer missionary work at the Crow Indian Agency in southern Montana, he passed through the small western town that stuck with him. “I liked it and decided I would like to move to an area like Buffalo either after I retired or sooner. I decided to finish raising my children there.” David moved his family from Wisconsin where he worked as an artist in residence and gunsmith and literally set up shop – his blacksmith shop, Arrowhead Forge.

He has been blacksmithing for three decades, developing his personal style which he defines as “functional iron art.” “I don’t do so much that is just sculpture. My pieces are functional sculpture; garden gates, fireplace tools, railings, furniture, etc. David has perfected his style over the years from a variety of influences. “Any style you develop takes time. Mine is certainly influenced by who I learned from and from looking at other people’s work and figuring out how they did certain things. I’m always learning and combining things I see every day. I’ll see something like the way a tree branch grows that really attracts my eye and I wonder how I can do that in iron.”

David first took an interest in blacksmithing while studying to become a gunsmith in Colorado. He found a local blacksmith who allowed David to work in his shop in exchange for teaching him the trade. “When I was working for him, he would teach me to make a fork or something. He really only expected me to make one, but I was so excited about making them that I would make a dozen and then go out and sell them. I learned far more than he was teaching me.” David worked with that blacksmith for a little more than a year before opening Arrowhead Forge in Maine and doing a little teaching of his own.

“Since I’ve moved to Wyoming and set up shop, I’ve had a lot of people asking to be my apprentice. I’ve sworn up and down that I wouldn’t have an apprentice. So, I’ve started teaching again.” This is his fourth year teaching and he’s had folks coming from California, Alaska, Mississippi and recently received an inquiry from a student in Canada.
“And, as a matter of fact, I do have an apprentice now also. Trying to avoid having an apprentice has actually led me to having one.”

David says he would like to increase the teaching aspect of his business, which he hopes could then provide him more time and financial security to produce gallery pieces where he can “design and build things exactly the way I would like them done.”
“It’s really fun building that way because you’re free. You don’t have to follow a drawing you did for a client months before. You’re freer to let it flow.”
Everything David builds in iron is completely unique and full of variety, “the true definition of custom.” “Something that I build is done specifically for you. I look at what you’ve got in your home, growing in your yard or what your interests are and then I build to suit you. I might utilize similar features from another piece but there will never be another one like the one I build for you.” While there is no ordinary piece, an elaborate garden gate might take David four to five weeks to finish while a simple set of fireplace tools generally only takes three days. “It’s pretty much unlimited what can be done in iron.”

In addition to his home and office furnishing-type pieces, David also enjoys doing historical re-creations of period tools, axes, and more primitive knives.

Image Above: Forged Iron Leaf Napkin Rings. If you have ever tried to swing a hammer and delicately form a semi-molten piece of iron, you can appreciate David's work. He made iron napkin rings for the Senate Wives’ luncheon for Rosalynn Carter, way back when and has just now introduced a new design.


To view more of David's work go to Arrowhead Forge on www.contemporarywesterndesign.com

For more western design that includes, western furniture, rustic furniture, western fashion,western jewelry, western art and western home accessories go to: www.contemporarywesterndesign.com

Meredith Lockhart

Kansas Fashion Designer

As a residential and commercial interior designer before moving to northeast Kansas, Meredith Lockhart is no stranger to the design world.

Inspired by the land that surrounds her and the western lifestyle, she is creating belts, handbags and, if you really beg, custom clothing.

Lockhart’s designs have been seen on stages, screens and runways from New York to LA and everywhere in between over the last 15 years. Rodeo Queens have donned her custom creations and country music stars have worn her clothing on stage and off. She has created collections for the Western Design Conference and started her own on-line store called Thistle’s West.

Meredith loves to create with leather because she says, “It feels and smells so good! And you can do so many things with it!”

Meredith is a master at the challenge of finding unique leathers and juxtaposing them against one another with special touches like lacing, fringe, fur and paintings to make creations ultra unique.

When Meredith is not in her 100-year-old schoolhouse studio creating for Thistle’s West, she is giving her time to inner city, adjudicated and at-risk students, teaching them art, costume design and mask making.

This Kansas cowgirl fashion designer not only has an eye for high fashion, but a heart of gold.

Learn more about Meredith at www.contemporarywesterndesign.com

Cloudbird

Profiling A Western Design Artist from Washington

Movement. Balance. Rhythm. These three words carry great meaning to art lighting creator Cloudbird.

Gracefully reaching into the 15 years she spent dancing, Cloudbird’s pieces are a beautiful reflection of her dedication to movement, combined with roots anchored firmly in Mother Earth.

Off on an Alaskan adventure when she was 17, she, “found buckets of it.” Falling in love with the raw beauty (and a guy) Cloudbird spent the next 11 years wholly dependent on her own skills to survive in the Alaskan Bush.

Those years of survival taught her to be observant and unafraid to create with the materials and tools at hand. What started out as a necessity when she re-entered civilization became an expression of her life experiences.

Learning to braid leather, do beadwork and work rawhide came quickly to this intrepid outdoor enthusiast who continues to do extensive research on each project, learning new techniques, styles, and the histories of each pattern she beads or paints.

Fascinated by many mediums and taking each one beyond its standard applications, Cloudbird’s pieces offer a timeless feel, full of delicate, yet powerful movement.

Learn more about Cloudbird and her work at www.contemporarywesterndesign.com