Today we are wrapping up our week-long series from Guest Blogger, Diana Friend, all about Cody High Style.  Scroll through the stories below, visit the artist’s websites, and enjoy the pictures.  These artists are the finest craftsmen {and women} creating rustic furniture, fashion and art, today.  Their contribution to the progression of Rustic design will be enjoyed for years to come.  Thanks for everything, Diana!!

Sánchez is a tall man, and greets his admirers with an invitation ‘would you like to here the story (of the piece)?’ Of course many heads turn, as he recites the tale of a bear traveling the base of the wood, but is being chased by two dogs; so the bear leaps to the next level and travels up the “trunk” of the tree with the dogs howling at its base. The bear leaps to the edge of a “cliff”, as he points out the bear tracks hanging on the edge of the “cliff”. The dogs go nuts, and the bear climbs higher trying to escape, and jumps through a knot-hole in the wood and into the cabinet. When he opens the cabinet door, the shelves are filled with large stone fetishes of bears and other wood creatures.

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More from Cody High Style…

Howkola means “welcome friends” in Lakota. Tim Lozier has been a custom furniture maker for 18 years and is a Cody native. His entry was an incredible king-sized bed featuring reclaimed wood and leather tooling by Keith Seidel, a saddle maker who has a shop on Cody’s main street. Tim’s work is one-of-a-kind but follows the Thomas Molesworth traditions with Lozier incorporating his own personal style. His goal with each piece is to create something that will be passed-on to the next generation.  Click HERE to visit Tim’s website.

Tim and Tiffany Lozier ~ Cody, Wyoming
“Spring Creek” Bed ~ $9,950
Lie down and dream of a beautiful Northfolk campus.  Juniper fence posts anchor the hand sculpted driftwood pieces that replicate the mountain view from Spring Creek.  The talented tooling of Keith Seidel brings softness to the hardscape of the wood.  Enjoy and sweet dreams.

Click HERE for one more pic…

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Guest blogger, Diana Friend, brings us more stories today from the Cody High Style event that took place in September. This one is about the man who won it all this year ~ Cody High Style Best in Show!! Congrats…

Dan McPhail sure looks like a western cowboy, with his rodeo-creased hat and faded chambray shirt and blue jeans. But when Diane Ross introduced me to Dan, I heard a twang not usually found west of the Mississippi. That is because he is a Kentucky cowboy that has been designing western antler-art accented furniture, accessories and sculptures, seven-days a week, for over 20-years.

“I had not been out west,” explains McPhail, tipping his hat to the back of his head. “So when I built my first antler chandelier, I thought I had invented the concept—boy was I disappointed when discover I hadn’t (invented antler chandeliers).”

So, even though he had not been influenced by other’s antler creations, he learned that creating each piece is “elk challenged” he strives to create something that reflects simple western design. He conquered the challenge this year with his $8500, polished-antler peduncle chaise lounge, upholstered in pale green leather {ABOVE} winning the 2008 Cody High Style Best of Show Award. Of course, he began winning design awards back in 1996.

For more beautiful antler designs from Dan visit his website HERE.

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Another stop in Cody, Wyoming from Guest Blogger, Diana Friend…

The Cody High Style Studio tour gave front porch views of the private studios of Cody’s best western artisans on a beautiful September day in Wyoming. Tour directors from the Cody Travel and Tourism department and transportation on a classic trolley set the stage to experience the settings and inspiration of these areas artists.

First stop was 15-miles outside of Cody, and down and up the narrow Hitching Post Drive to Ron and Jean Shanor’s Wildewood Furniture Studio. Built on what’s left of Buffalo Bill’s original homestead, the shop is an artistic endeavor, made out of straw bales covered with concrete that they built themselves. With an R70 insulating factor, they also built their home and their parents’ home using straw bales construction technique.

Listening to Ron as he explains his home and his work proves he is part engineer, scientist, architect as well as artist. We were welcomed into the studio filled with wood, lumber, tools and furniture in various stages of completion. He talks about how he selects and gathers the right pieces of wood for projects during the summer and works inside during the Wyoming winters. He also shares that his work is his passion, and is always learning new techniques, like creating wood inlays. He passes around a scroll-saw blade that is so fine, I could barely see it without my glasses! He then proceeded to use the blade to cut-out a steer head from quarter-inch panels of maple, black walnut and zebra wood stacked together—cutting carefully, then taking them apart to create an inlay piece from popping the horns from one piece, the head from another, into the framing block.

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Continuing our Cody High Style series ~ from Guest Blogger, Diana Friend…

I met Steve Reynolds at the Style West Trade show and I must say his grandfather clocks give a whole new meaning to recycle.

Contact Steve HERE for more information.

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Here is another story in our Cody High Style Series with Guest Blogger Diana Friend… these boots from Lisa Sorrell are stunning and her website is superb.  Enjoy!!

The things mother’s teach daughters can open the doors to a fabulous career, as is the case for Lisa Sorrell. As a young girl, Lisa’s mom taught her to sew, a skill that became helpful when she married and moved to Guthrie, Oklahoma. Lisa saw a newspaper ad for a job sewing boots. She got the job, and ended up as an apprentice to the bootmaker and learned how to make custom boots.

A one-woman shop, each pair of boots begins with Lisa personally measuring and discussing her client’s needs and design ideas. The tools and time-honored craftsmanship take about 18-months to complete and deliver each pair. She produces about three-pair of boots each month.

A Master Bootmaker since 2005, she has won the Master’s Division of the boot contest at the Boot and Saddlemaker’s Roundup. Her work has also been featured in Tyler Beard’s books, Art of the Boot and Cowboy Boots, and in Jennifer June’s book Cowboy Boots: The Art and Sole.

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This morning we will continue our series about Cody High Style with Guest Blogger Diana Friend… First up, Diane Cole Ross from Rustic Furniture Limited Company.  You have got to check out their furniture HERE!!

Creating fine one-of-a-kind rustic pieces in Montana since 1979

Diane Cole Ross became my tour guide of the Furniture Show at the Buffalo Bill Historic Center. As we talked about her beautiful cherry and choke cherry sofa table she created from reclaimed and recycled hardwoods. Price: $6200.

She knew I was new to the show, so she quickly introduced me to her friends, Dan McPhail, Rusty Viers, Andy Sanchez and John and Pam Mortensen. My afternoon was filled learning about the artists and their art of making museum quality furniture.

You are not going to want to miss any of these amazing artisans!!  Thanks, Diana… 

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Next up in our Cody High Style series with Guest Blogger Diana Friend is a couple that is really innovative in their work and designs.  Their shop was filled with décor that provides the WOW factor for those who love western…

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Part 1 in our series about Cody High Style, from Guest Blogger Diana Friend, is about clothing and furniture designer, Anne Beard…

2008 Cody High Style entry: Red ottoman with western image appliqué

Anne came to Cody when it was the Western Design Conference and was one of the first artists to compete and win awards in both the fashion and furniture design competitions. Her first win as a fiber artist was for a smoking jacket. She got a kick out of it, but was intrigued with the Western furniture, and began working on designs that showed the other side of her personality.

Anne Beard ~ Lexington, Oregon
“A Day in the Life” ~ $5300
One of a kind, wool gabardine, appliqued coffee table/ottoman accented with deer hide covered legs and decorative nail heads.  Appliques feature timeless scenes depicting “A Day in the Life” of every working cowboy.

In 1997, Beard won her first Switchback Ranch Award, which allows the Buffalo Bill Historical Center to purchase pieces for its permanent collection of Western Decorative Art. She is the only artist to have won in both the fashion and furniture divisions.

{Close up of detailed work on Anne Beard’s Ottoman}

Her brother is a custom woodworker and she has always had an appreciation for his “handmanship”. She admires and appreciates the range of western craft and incorporates its spirit into her designs. Her furniture and clothing pieces are one-of-a-kind and suitable for the contemporary western lifestyle.

Anne thinks winning the fashion award helped give her furniture work credibility…

“…and I began thinking about what can I do that would be as good—you know…top myself. So I considered ‘furniture wearing clothes’. 

So I did an upholstered ottoman that won the ‘Best Western Spirit Award’.”

Anne got really interested in furniture because you have such a large canvas to work with. She won her second Switchback award in 2002.

Beard’s 25-year career has been influenced growing-up on a Washington mountain ranch and her current residence on Oregon’s high desert. This year’s entry is an over sized tailored ottoman appliquéd with elements of the west with bucking broncos, cowboys, cowgirls, Indians, cattle and horses.

STUNNING!! I found a great videoed interview with Anne HERE if you would like to see more beautiful images of her work… And to contact Anne herself, click HERE.

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Good morning all!!  I am so excited about the series of blogs that we’ll have here at CactusCreekDaily.com this week… They are all about Cody High Style which took place in Cody, WY, Sept 22-26.  This is a week long event, held at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, that is dedicated to the celebration of “Authentically Western Fashion & Design”.  In addition to the Cody High Style show there is also the Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale and the Patrons Ball.  These three events make up Rendezvous Royale: A Celebration of Arts in Cody, WY.

Originally known as the Western Design Conference, that event was sold in 2007 and moved to Jackson Hole.  Taking its place is Cody High Style, the “original” design show which remains commited to maintaining, promoting and serving the western art community.

A little background to how we made it to Cody… This summer I ran into Meredith Lockhart of Merezia {designs stunning clothes for rodeo queens}; Meredith told me she would be attending Cody High Style along with her friend, Diana Friend.  Diana quickly stepped up when I mentioned how much I would love to get stories from Cody High Style.  Diana’s credentials outweigh mine by a mile, not only is she talented and smart, she is also a former rodeo beauty queen!!  With that very brief intro I turn it over to Diana…

We began our trip from Nortonville, Kansas, the home of Western Fashion Designer Meredith Lockhart, of Merezia Designs on Monday, September 22. She had asked me to come and help in her trade show booth, as well as help with her participation in the Cody High Style Fashion Show and competition. It’s a little over 1,000 miles to Cody from Nortonville, and when you put four women in an Explorer, pulling a U-Haul trailer, the time passed pretty quickly. Meredith also invited jewelry designer Cindy DeHoff to come as a model as well as a vendor in her booth. Cindy is a multi-talented working mom of two daughters, Courtney and Hadley. She became friends with Meredith when Courtney became Miss High School Rodeo Kansas and needed designer clothing. Cindy creates beaded jewelry, including designs that coordinate with Merezia designer clothing. Dayna Iverson, is the fourth lady making the trip and even though she isn’t a Kansan, she is a Kansas gal, once removed. Her mother grew-up in Eureka, and happens to be one of my best friends from High School—but more on her later.

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