The Disappearing Art of Texas Leather Tooling
A distant time and a different place: I remember going to my father’s junior high leather working class: sitting as a small child at the extra tall desk, watching his students slip the fascinating tools out and mallet designs into scrap leather. It seemed every male student sported his own custom leather wallet and belt. It was so common place; little did I know I was watching the end of a historical Texas art form. That was the last class in the school district to learn this magical craft.[1]
Many regrets; one is not having had collected more of the beautiful custom tooled leather. Then by the merest happenstance, like walking back in time, I found James Maddison. I was looking for vintage carved leather shotgun cases, and miraculously I found a living and breathing master leather worker right here in Central Texas. In Fredericksburg, JM Maddison and his wife Susan produce some of the most talented and beautiful work I’ve ever seen. After seeing his shotgun case, the famous Texas floral carved against black dyed leather featuring a hand sculpted and painted turkey on one side and pheasant on the other took my breath away. The deal was struck, my wife mystified by the sudden Sunday afternoon appointment with our guest from Fredericksburg.
James and Susan, a delightful couple, came with wares – just as I asked. He had hand engraved belt buckles, hand tooled bible covers, examples of Texas Ranger star belts and emblems. He had worked for Rangers I knew (Rangers are notoriously secret about where they get their custom work done). Now I knew, as we talked I envisioned one custom engraved project after another. James careful attention to detail creates stunning scenes, old school and incredibly gifted. Unlike most leather workers he turns his work around quickly and professionally.
One of James several claims to fame is that you can take him a sketch, a photo on your phone, a scrap of magazine or any other type of picture, and he can duplicate it in leather or silver. It’s an amazing old world master craftsman talent. He has made custom belt buckles for George Strait and his family along with many rodeo prize buckles.
I’ve never seen this before, but all of James work is strictly freehand. He doesn’t draw a pattern or use a template, he starts the work and as a true artistic genius understands the form to proportion, the tooling and engraving just flows into the space magically forming his magnificent designs. The mind of a genius, the eye of an artist, and the hands of a sculptor coming together in one of Texas lost and dying arts.
Check out his website, www.jmbuckles.com, their phone is number (830) 998-9733. James and Susan’s work is more than just an ornate gun slip, it’s an investment, an appreciating investment, in historical Texas art.
[1] Swiftly every Texas school dropped leather working because standardized testing was the new rage. Truly fascinating every man that worked on the nuclear program or put man on the moon had a leather working class as a young man or in Boy Scouts, yet none had suffered through standardized tests.