My Peery saddle

[From the Sneak Peeks page, Dated November 6]  Every now and then I'm lucky enough to splurge.  I've been looking for a Brooke Peery western saddle for years.  Brooke is yet another example of a very talented tack artist who takes the field by storm for a few years and then quietly vanishes, leaving collectors to scramble.  She first appeared somewhere around 2005.  The date on this beauty is 2007.

The usual stretch for such an artist is three years.  Brooke may have lasted a little longer, but not much; by 2009 I couldn't find her.  Her website, brookepeery.tripod.com, shows pictures of the 2006 NAN and mentions she has been making tack "for about 3 years now."  This would push the opening date back a couple years, to 2003, but bring the close forward as well -- there are no updates after 2006.  I think it's fair to state that the glory years were centered around 2005-2007.  Like I said, I got lucky.

I have Ashley G. to thank for the chance to acquire this lovely piece.  It appears to be freehand tooled.  The silver is thin aluminum sheet (not tape) hand cut and embossed.  The spots are all pin heads:  trust me, that's the hard way.  Yes, the fenders don't swing (more obvious in the above picture) but the overall detail is awesome.

The blanket is my own work (Blue Catalina) done from a pattern of Chris Armstrong's with different colors.  The bridle is my own Tissarn's Mech Hack, up because Jenn Buxton's Hack is based on it [at the time posted on braymere blog] and because the greens were a better match to the turquoise blanket than her dark red.  I would also like to crow about the blue sky.  This was the first blue sky I'd really seen since Sandy the Superstorm, i.e. in about a week!!
And of course the horse is Carol Williams' incomparable Matriarch, painted by Katie Richards and given me by that earthbound angel, Sue Peet.  I named her LaJewel, which is a real person's name which I saw in a magazine.