By Nick Pernokas 

Creating order and beauty from raw materials ran in Gordon Andrus’s family. His grandfather was an industrial arts teacher, who taught pupils how to work in many mediums including leather. 

“My grandfather never met a raw material that he didn’t like,” remembers Gordon. 

In 1974, Gordon Andrus was in the ninth grade in Glenwood, Utah, when his grandfather passed away. Gordon inherited his grandfather’s set of leather tools. These included the stamps that he’d made himself out of nails, as well as some Tandy Crafttools. There was no swivel knife, so Gordon improvised with a buckstitching chisel. Gordon’s basement bedroom was soon taken over by a leather shop as he learned how to tool and repair leather. Gordon didn’t have a sewing machine, so he learned to rely on buckstitching and hand sewing for construction. 

Gordon’s father was a uranium geologist. When he was 14, Gordon went to work for his dad’s company in the summers. He traveled through the mountains and deserts of southern Utah. 

“I saw incredible places that nobody ever goes,” says Gordon. 

Gordon developed an appreciation of the West from his travels. 

During his junior and senior years, Gordon was able to take extra courses in art at a local trade tech school. A teacher there encouraged him and helped him with his drawing skills. 

Eventually, the family moved to Denver. When Gordon was 21, he went to work for Keyston Brothers. The large production shop was just down to a skeleton crew of six by then. Gordon would start his day sweeping and move on to other jobs in the afternoon. The leatherwork was not very challenging for Gordon, who by then wanted to advance his skills. He quit and went back to Utah to work on a haying crew. For a majority of his 20s, Gordon bounced around – from working in the oilfield to working on power lines. 

“Those were strange years. The school of hard knocks kicked my ass so I went to college.” 

Gordon decided to go to art school in 1984, and explore the things that really interested him. He enrolled at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. He found that the closest subject he could study similar to leatherwork was clay. It was a craft art form, and he was familiar with that type of work, so he majored in ceramics. By the time he did his undergraduate work, he was pursuing it as a high art form and planned on being a professor. Gordon also worked in a local tack shop, The Cache Valley Horseman, during his college years. Mark Broughton, a saddlemaker, had his own saddle business, Buffalo Strong Saddlery, within the store. Gordon was employed as a stamper and leather repairman for Mark. He gained a lot of knowledge by working with Mark and he was able to build his first saddle, a double-rigged swell fork, while he was there. 

In 1986, Gordon met Maryanne at Utah State, and they were soon married. When she finished her graduate program, the couple headed to western New York. Gordon had been accepted into a prestigious graduate program at the New York College of Ceramic Art at Alfred University.  

While Gordon was studying ceramics there, another student told him that she thought he’d be interested in Louis Sullivan’s work. Gordon went to the art library and looked Sullivan up. Sullivan had been the chief architect for the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. One book had a collection of Sullivan’s friezes for terra cotta or plaster. 

“It was a big eye opening moment.” 

Gordon had studied F.O. Baird’s leatherwork from the Thirties and Forties, and these designs struck him as similar to his work. Gordon realized that Baird had been drawing on a much earlier style of art. Gordon became very interested in architectural terra cotta, and the classical education system that had fostered the workmen who executed the Sullivan designs commercially. These floral designs had always been around, but their popularity was at a high point during the Victorian era.   They were used to decorate many products, especially buildings. As styles of art changed in the following decades, architectural decoration became simpler until buildings became unadorned boxes. 

“We stopped decorating everything, but cowboys stubbornly held on to it. Western floral tooling isn’t original to the West. It’s a holdover from something the whole world was using at one time.” 

The lessons learned from architectural art would later have a large influence on Gordon’s leatherwork. He also learned another lesson about combining mediums, and found that he could incorporate a leather texture into the pottery he was making to give it a unique appearance. 

By the early 90s, the couple had two children. After Gordon finished graduate school, he applied for professorships at several universities. Maryanne was a folklorist though and she was offered a very good job in northwestern Tennessee. The couple liked the prospects there more than some of the offers that Gordon was receiving. They headed to The Home Place 1850, which was a living history farm in Dover, Tennessee. Gordon set up a ceramics studio nearby, but soon he was also working at the farm. Gordon enjoyed the farm work with horses and oxen, as well as logging. 

“It was an incredible experience.” 

Gordon’s experience with leather was appreciated at the farm and soon he was doing a lot of harness repair. He built a stitching horse and his ability to hand stitch fit in well with the period correct tone of the museum. The farm even grew the flax that was used for thread. It was combed to produce a linen fiber, which one of the weavers would then spin into thread. 

“I learned a lot from the people that worked in that field. I learned a lot about really old ways of working leather. I did a lot of leather hand skills out there at the farm.” 

Gordon was still thinking about the saddle business though, and he built a period reproduction saddle for himself in his spare time. 

Around 2000, the family headed to the Henry Ford Museum at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. For the next two years, Gordon was the head of the draft and carriage horse operation there. 

In 2002, Maryanne got a job at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming. Gordon wandered into a Cody store, Wyoming Outdoor Industries, one day. He overheard the owners talking about how far behind they were on saddle orders. Gordon walked up and told them that he could build saddles. The owners gave him a contract job right on the spot. He headed to Alberta to pick up a new stitcher and he was in the saddle business. 

“That’s when it all started full time,” remembers Gordon. 

Gordon built three or four “Mountain Hunting Saddles” a month for the store. They all had to be identical and they were untooled. The swells were slick forks or modified Associations, and the skirts were inskirt Hubbard style. Gordon honed his pattern-making skills on them, as the pieces were tricky to fit. Occasionally, he would visit Keith Seidel’s saddle shop and was always impressed by the level of work that was being done there. It gave him something to shoot for, although he didn’t know how he was going to get there at the time.  

“Eventually I stopped building contract saddles and began working off my own business.” 

Gordon went to the Sheridan leather show every year, and the saddles that were displayed there were further inspiration to him. He enjoyed visiting with the many talented makers from that region. In 2006, he decided to create a saddle that would be good enough to take to Sheridan. Gordon labored over a vintage slick fork-style saddle. He really pushed himself on the tooling to try and make the whole saddle as perfect as he could. 

“I can look at pictures of that saddle now and it doesn’t necessarily stack up; but it was ground breaking for me and it had the very beginnings of my acanthus-type tooling.” 

Gordon didn’t have a makers stamp for the saddle, so he carved one out of a chunk of steel. It boldly said, “Andrus.” 

“Don Butler saw that and he had no idea who I was. It really jumped out at him.” 

Butler gave Gordon a few pointers, but he also told him that his saddle had come within a few points of winning.  

“That one saddle was a big turning point.” 

Gordon started building more custom saddles. As he received orders, he had trouble getting saddle silver for them. He decided that if he was going to put silver on his saddles, then he should make it. 

“I got an AirGraver, and the Jeremiah Watts videos, and started scratching some silver up.” 

Gordon had wanted to do single point engraving, which is found on guns, rather than the bright cut engraving found on silver trim. He thought that the single point engraving would be more cohesive with leather tooling patterns. 

“I came to find out that bright cut is pretty interesting stuff. I’d seen it, but I hadn’t looked as close at it. And then it hit me that these bright cut scrolls could be done in leather, which is the opposite of what I thought I was going to do. The silver just really influenced the tooling.” 

In 2009, Gordon took a class with Dave Alderson on hand pushing bright cut engraving. It jumped his work ahead, and inspired him to compulsively practice his engraving for eight hours at a time. 

Gordon worked on his silver work and continued to improve. His leather carving and his silver work came together, and complimented each other. The first leather scroll work Gordon did that was similar to the engraving did not have any background because bright cut silver didn’t. His style of scrolls remained similar, but the leaves became less chunky and more refined, and delicate, as he tried to increase the illusion of flow and movement. 

“I experimented with different flow lines. I like to get the flowers situated so that they can be relating to each other, kind of like people.” 

In 2011, the Andrus family moved back to Coalville, Utah. Gordon spent three months building a saddle shop on his property. The 30 x 60-foot log building fits in with Gordon’s life style and ties in nicely with their log home just down the hill. There was a dry spell while he worked on his place, but when the shop was ready, the orders started coming in again. The Sage Creek Stock Saddle Company was in business. 

By 2015, Gordon found a degree of satisfaction in the results of his silverwork. Gordon considers himself an artist rather than a tradesman. He may not be able to build a silver teapot from scratch, but he can dome and engrave silver well enough to execute his vision in his artwork. Gordon also came to realize all of the materials he worked in were similar. A blacksmith showed him how he made roses from steel after first making a prototype from clay. Both materials had a degree of plasticity, which hardened as they cooled. Gordon was doing similar work in the various mediums that he worked in, whether they were clay, leather or silver. 

“I call that phenomenon cross-pollination. It’s never hurt me to learn a new craft.” 

Most of Gordon’s customers are people who have disposable income and have horses for fun. He admits that he doesn’t get out and mingle with potential equine customers like many saddlemakers do, which may limit the volume of potential customers that he can interact with. Gordon doesn’t do many full-carved saddles, but he does build a lot of combination saddles. 

“For a long time, if I could see something on a saddle that I could see in my imagination, a new tooling idea, I was just going to have to do it. I gave away hours and hours of tooling. But I developed what I was chasing. I’m to the point now where it’s going to be an expensive item.” 

Gordon doesn’t make products now that won’t sell for what he thinks his time and art is worth. Smaller items like spur straps have gone by the wayside, even though he enjoys making them. 

By 2015, Gordon was thinking of working in another medium to make leather tools. He wanted to make a simple sharpening jig for swivel knives. Jesus Hernandez was a Californian who was interested in learning more about leatherwork as a hobby. He also was part owner of a machine shop. He called Gordon to see if he could purchase some patterns at the same time Gordon was trying to figure out how to get some parts water jetted. The two men hit it off and Gordon went to California to meet him. 

“He’s just an incredible human being.” 

Jesus was enthused about building leather tools, and he took the bit and ran with it. He set Gordon up with some machinery and a lathe to get started, and showed Gordon how to do the work himself so he could avoid the high cost and high volume needed for CNC machines. Jesus stayed with Gordon from time to time and Gordon made him an extensive set of leather stamps. The two men became good friends. Red Ox Brand Tools, named fondly for Buck, an ox in Gordon’s Tennessee days, gradually expanded past swivel knife sharpeners into swivel knives, swivel knife blades, awl blades and awl handles. 

In 2020, Gordon won the Academy of Western Artist’s “Saddle Maker of the year Award.” He also won the “World Leather Debut” with one of his saddles. 

Gordon has written two books on leather carving: Harmony and Life in Leather and Drawing Floral Patterns for Leather Tooling are both available from his website. Gordon also writes articles for the Leather Crafters and Saddlers Journal. All of these products are geared to the bespoke craftsmen, who today outnumber the saddlemakers. 

“I don’t think leathercraft has ever had the numbers of people involved as it does today.” 

Many of these craftsmen use tools that were not even available commercially several decades ago. 

Gordon still works in leather and silver and his saddles start at $6500. When trade shows are coming up though, he concentrates on making tools. He enjoys working in solitude and jokingly refers to himself as a hermit. 

To find out about Gordon’s tools, saddles or books, you can go to sagecreeksaddles.com, or find Gordon on Sage Creek Stock Saddle Co. on Facebook , or call (307) 272-8585. 

Sage Creek Stock Saddle Company 

1590 S West Hoytsville Rd  

Coalville, UT  84017