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“For more than thirty years now, I’ve lived
around the Crowheart, Wyoming area. In those years, I’ve guided
people from all over the world through the Wyoming high country, cowboyed
in the foothills and prairies and started between 700-800 young hourses
in the process,” Mecum relates.
“These experiences have, out of necessity, sparked a keen interest
in the tools of the trade, the foremost being the saddle and how to
build it better, stronger, more comfortable for the horse and rider
as well as pleasing to the eye.
“In 1986, Bob Douglas of Sheridan, Wyoming, taught me to build
saddles. Since the early 1980’s, 80 percent of my income has
been from the saddle business. I have always appreciated smooth, clean
work and while my carving is largely self-taught, I have been influenced
by Don King and with much appreciated
advice from Chas Weldon and Dale
Harwood,” he said.
He was invited by Jeremiah Watt to display a saddle at the 1994 Cowboy
Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada. In 1996, he was nominated
for “Outstanding Excellence in the Western Arts” for
the Will Rogers Cowboy Awards by the Academy of Western
Artists.
In 1997, he was again invited to display a saddle at Elko and his
work was voted third place in the “Best of Show,” behind Dale
Harwood and Chuck Stormes.
In 1999, he received the “Best of Show” award at the 13th
Annual Trappings of Texas show in Alpine.
“In 2001, it was a real privilege for me to be voted into the
TCAA by artists whose work I’ve admired for years and whose
mission statement is a very worthy one.”
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