Artist's passion recognized at Cowboy True event

John Rule wasn't expecting to be at a loss for words this weekend as he set up his artist booth at J.S. Bridwell Agricultural Center for the Cowboy True event.

Despite working with leather for almost 50 years and sculpting for the last 15 years, he was humbled when he was told he would be featured at next year's event.

“I’m generally not too speechless, but when they told me I was going to be the featured artist next year and said it was because of the work on the saddle and saddle bag, shoot, I couldn’t even say anything," Rule said. "Those judges are tremendous craftsman, so for them to recognize the quality of what I do is – that mean’s something.”

Rule first started leather working as a child, building belts and other smaller projects. After repairing a few saddles, he built one himself at age 16. His craft even introduced him to his wife, whom he met one day when she brought a saddle in to be repaired. He would later open a retail saddle shop in the stockyards of Oklahoma City, where he worked with his wife for about 30 years.

As he begins to work on a saddle, Rule said he will cut the leather and get the lines the way he wants them before tooling the leather in a freestyle manner.

“I don’t draw any patterns, per sae. If I have a particular flower I’m using, I will draw it out since they need to be symmetrical," Rule said. "… I could draw it if I wanted to on paper, but I try not to do it that way. I just have adjacent compass marks, flowers in the middle going different directions and then create my flow of how each flower feeds into the next flower in simple series of figure eights and S’s.”

While some artists prefer their saddles be symmetrical, Rule prefers to allow the pattern to develop as he decorates..

“From side to side, there will be some similarities. I’m not so dedicated that each side has to be the same," Rule said. "Each one of them will absolutely be unique because there is no pattern. I couldn’t duplicate it. I’ll make a mistake or two in there. A true craftsman could cover it up to where most people can’t see it, so I try to do that too.”

After selling his saddle shop, Rule decided to pursue other medias and got into bronze sculptures. He'd won a state art contest in elementary school with a wire sculpture of a standing horse.

“I’d always wanted to sculpt. ... I can’t say it was a dream of mine to pursue it, but it was always in the back of my head," Rule said. "We sold our saddle shop, so I didn’t have a retail place I had to work every Saturday – we worked every Saturday for 30 years in that shop. I just decided to start pushing it a little bit further and now I probably sculpt at least as much as I do leather work – maybe more.”

Rule said leather working and sculpting each present a slightly different challenge but have some similarities. He's compacting the leather or slightly lifting it while tooling leather, whereas he's adding to and removing from the clay as he sculpts the piece to be molded for bronze.

“I can’t add or take away anything on a piece of leather like that, but I am essentially still sculpting," Rule said. "I’m trying to bring a flat plane to make it look like it’s three-dimensional, so they are really similar. Similar in result, not necessarily in how you approach it.”

He may not draw out his pattern for leather work, but Rule said he gets a general idea of what he's working on for sculpting so he can check proportions, symmetry and composition of the artwork. In his artwork, Rule focuses on his two main interests for inspiration.

“I like cowboys and Native Americans stuff. Just west of where I’m at, there are quite a few Kiowas that I’ve become friends with, so that’s probably what I focus on more what’s in my region.”

The artist from Minco, Okla. – a small town of less than 2,000 people about 40 miles west of Oklahoma City – attends maybe four or five shows a year to showcase his passions in leather and bronze, but the recognition from the judges that he received at this year's Cowboy True reaffirmed his life's passions, even as he is still always looking for feedback from other artists.

“What I do is what I do, but there is always room for improvement," he said. "My sculpting is taking more of my time all of my time – not that the leather work is on the back burner. I’ve done it for a long time, but there is a lot of things out there in life. I’m not done yet, so I’ve got other avenues I’m pursuing.”