Hilary Heminway and Keith Seidel admire a hand-dyed and tooled saddle with a carved mixed floral pattern.
Excerpt from the article: “Seidel’s Saddlery stands across the street and adjacent to the imposing Irma Hotel, which was built by Buffalo Bill in 1902. Natives of Cody, Keith and Lisa Seidel are punctilious in their observance of western sumptuary laws: hat, buckle, boots. The son of a preacher, Keith Seidel has been custom-tooling saddles since age 14. Half his clientele is working cowboys, half is dudes eager for “decorator” saddles. Seidel, whose name bears flirtatious similarity to his product, also makes chaps, belts, and tapadero lamps. ‘One of our belts was given as an inaugural present to President (George W.) Bush,’ he says, while holding court in his second-story workshop. If the cowboy is the enduring symbol of a rollicking, free-ranging America, then artisans such as Seidel have made it possible for the cowboy to sit tall in the saddle.”