Imaginations at Work: A Saddle Maker and a Poet

30 January 2011

Carving patterns into the leather is a skill saddle maker Nancy Martiny first learned as a teenager, while watching her father tool leather.

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I’m Christopher Cruise.

FAITH LAPIDUS: And I’m Faith Lapidus. Some jobs require little or no creativity. Other jobs are all about creativity. This week on our program, we meet two Americans who put their imaginations to work in very different ways. One is a saddle maker. The other is a poet.

(MUSIC)

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Nancy Martiny has worked with horses all her life. She learned riding and roping when she grew up on a cattle ranch.

NANCY MARTINY: "From whenever I was a little kid I was always doing what the men did. And then as I got older and rodeoed and into producing rodeos, I’ve always worked with men."

Ms. Martiny started making western saddles for fun as a hobby. Now, she has a waiting list. People have to wait up to three years to buy one of her saddles.

NANCY MARTINY: "I’ve had people ask me that they think you have to be big and strong and tough to build saddles, and you don’t. You have to have a sharp knife."

FAITH LAPIDUS: A sharp knife is just a tool. A good saddle maker also has to have an artistic sense for carving and shaping designs into leather.