Where To Start: Southwestern Rugs, Western Rugs, Native American Rugs

I had to ask myself multiple times why this seems so important. What about the lantern sitting on my coffee table and the black and white striped table runner, mean to me. Does it have meaning? I believe it does because time did a backward cartwheel and took me to being twelve years old, living back with my parents. Being the twelve-year-old, who got a new seventeen magazine once of month. I remember tearing pictures of Nick Jonas out, not to hang on my walls but to fold up and look at when I would polish my nails. The glory days when I lived vicariously through my Bratz dolls and their over-sized party bus.

I remember one of the most important decisions I had to make at twelve years old, what color to paint my room. Paint is a snippet of your personality reflected by different color waves that make the eyes do the hustle.  I had a white princess bed, so my parents wanted me to choose a color to compliment my beautiful bed with a sky blue canopy. They brought home swatches for me to chose, and the one that jumped out was this beautiful eggplant color. I decided on that color, and I never looked back. So why is this important to the prompt? Ever since I was twelve, I always wanted the HGTV dream home or Pinterest inspired living room. Decor has and still is a huge 695 square foot reflection of my personality today. The reason behind the wheat stems in a wicker vase or the two metal wall galvanized hung across from one another to create symmetry without dysfunction. Sometimes I say to myself, “what would twelve year old me do?”

Area Rugs Can Be The Foundation of Your Home Decor

Decor is portrayed as a since of Art. It is when one’s self can express their creativity and emotion. Not only that, it is what shows one’s personality. It all begins with one style or design one life, and it all goes from there. Decorating your house, apartment, room, office, car, etc., helps express who you are. You can tell a lot about one’s personality through their personal style. You want to feel comfortable in a particular setting that best fits you, and no matter where you are at, you can add a piece to make you feel more at home. One thing that really seems to help me has been adding Native American, western and southwestern area rugs to my home.

One particular moment in my life was decorating has made a major impact on my life, was the day that I moved into my college dorm. I was getting ready for my first semester of freshman year this last August, and I wanted to make myself feel more at home in a new state and new school. I was able to incorporate my sense of style, elements, and personality into my decorations for my dorm room. If my dad was the one that decorated my room for me, I would not be able to feel at home or comfortable in my own room that I will be spending the next four years in. I want to put my sense of style so that I can be able to feel comfortable in a new environment. It is very important to express your personality though decorating, because without it, how else would others know your own sense of style and see who you truly are.

Not only do you want to express your own personality, but it is also good to incorporate others, to brighten your horizons and express others too. You get to incorporate certain colors such as warms and cool, even get to mix and match, to best fit you. You get to incorporate different textures and style to accompany your decorations. It is so much fun and interesting to see what all you can do to your liking’s. Decorating has not only helped me find myself and sense of style but was gotten others to see a sense of another personality traits that they never knew before.

Decorations show how creative a person is and it also shows their patience because it takes time and dedication to do it. It also helps people by entertaining them for a while. Decor gives a place a personal and sentimental feeling because it represents you as a person, family or business. In a business, decorating is important because it gives sophistication and style to the place which makes it unique.  Decor let the mind blow away and distract from the world. You can be yourself and express it through art. Decorating lets each individual express the interior. Furthermore, studies have shown that it also has a psychological influence on people.

Authors Mary Jo Weale, James W. Croake, and Bruce Weale have argued of how decor is shown in different environments:

1. through the senses – sight, touch, taste, hearing, and smell. In decor sensory engagement is the most crucial factor and it is important while selling a house because people will give a look at it and if they like what they see they would buy it. A mixture of emotions and feeling are attached to things and decor.

2. Through time and by moment – through space. Memories come to your mind if you see something antique and it can represent your entire life or history.

3. Through reasoning or thought – memory or imagination.

4. Through emotions, both pleasant and unpleasant. “Our lives are awash with memories, and the home is, in many ways, a museum of comfort, where all these memories can be gathered and cherished.” (Carolyn Purnell) Memories would always be in life but you decide how to organize them.

5. Through anticipation or expectation.  You have expectations of how you want your room to look like. For example, you have an exact place for your pants and another one for the knifes. You can anticipate how things are going to be.  How decor influences our lives and how others perceive us and the world are fantastic. people can determine how people character and what they like it.

Tom Lucas- Painter and Native American Reproductions

It is said that art is a statement of a current time and place. My art takes me to a past time and place, one filled with artifacts and history. Telling stories with my oils is an emotional journey that is a direct reflection of my life experiences. My desire to be a western artist stems from my lifestyle as a cowboy artifacts and have acquired an unmatched working knowledge of the actual methods of ancestral tool making. These items and their history are subjects in my still-life paintings and the compositions are arranged as if I am telling a story.

 
 

Gary Keimig – Painter

Gary’s art reflects his interest and love of the Rocky Mountain West, its landscapes, and its wildlife. He is particularly interested in wild places. In light and texture and how these ingredients affect objects in their environment. He is challenged by the minute, often overpassed, niches in the outdoors and in creating a pleasing realistic design that can be incorporated into a painting. He is touched by both the awesomeness and simple spirit of nature and considers his work successful when the viewer is equally touched and, in return, catches a glimpse of that enduring spirit of wilderness and meaning within themselves.

 
 

D. Michael Thomas – Sculptor

D. Michael Thomas, a Wyoming native, has been sculpting for over 30 years.  Having grown up working on cattle ranches in remote western Wyoming and alongside some real old timers, he feels lucky to have heard some of their stories, wit, and sense of humor.  So, it’s natural for Mike to possess a love of the west and its rich history.  Raised in an artistic family he grew up with such heroes as Will James and Charles Russell just to mention a couple.

Thomas graduated from the University of Wyoming in 1977 with a degree in Animal Science and Pre-veterinary Medicine.  After graduation, Thomas worked in the Agri-business field as both a Loan Officer and Manager of a Feed and Ranch Supply business for 16 years before turning to his art full time in 1993.  That year he completed a monument depicting both sides of the infamous “Johnson County Cattle War” which stands near the First National Bank of Buffalo, Wyoming.

 
 

Deb Robinett – Photography/Postcards

Living at the head of Wyoming’s Dunoir Valley on a working cattle ranch, Deb Robinett is witness to sights few of us can image, let alone experience. The glimpses she captures as the shutter closes are insights, precious in their content, to the eyes, to the emotions, to the soul, western glimpses of the lifestyle and surroundings of Deb Robinett. From the delicate play on light glistening on the wings of a butterfly to the raw power of the grizzly bear, Ms. Robinett’s camera records the majestic sometimes comical, snippets of nature. Her subjects range from wildlife and the breathtaking scenery which surround her to the workings of a western ranch where she lives and works. Captured and reproduced on handcrafted keepsake cards, Western Glimpses are meant to carry a precious message, a message accentuated by beautiful moment in time.

 
 

Dustin Stephenson – Pottery

The Raku process entails mixing raw chemicals for glazes which then are applied to a fired piece of pottery.  The piece then is fired in an outside kiln with a weed burner and propane.  After the piece reaches the proper temperature to melt the glaze, the burner is then shut down.  This piece is removed from the kiln and placed in a barrel of flammable materials such as sawdust, straw, horse dung or shredded newspapers.  When the materials flame up, a lid is placed over the barrel to suffocate the flame and lock in the colors.  Many times pieces will crack from the quick temperature change, but that is simply part of the raku process. Many cracks are quite unique and no two are ever the same.

 
 

Jane Skaar Coleman – Painter

An award-winning artist, Jane has been painting professionally for many years and enjoys the western landscape, it’s animals and wildlife as subject matter.  Horses are a particularly favorite subject of hers, having owned and worked with horses for many years.  Her paintings are mainly in watercolor and sometimes she prefers to paint in oil. Jane was past president of the Wyoming Artist Association, past president and signature member of Wyoming Watercolor Society, a signature member of the Montana Watercolor Society, the American Academy Of Women Artists and an associate member of and Women Artists of the West, and the American Academy of Equine Art. Jane ‘s paintings are in many permanent and private collections, her beautiful watercolors can be found in galleries in Wickenburg, AZ and Jackson, Riverton and Dubois, WY.

 
 

John Finley – Painter/Scrimshaw

John’s work is as diverse as the land where he grew up. As an authentic cowboy artist, his ideas come from those western Wyoming landscapes and they often express the cowboy’s place in his everyday life. His life as a cowboy and years as a big game hunting guide provide the inspiration for his work. He paints, sculpts and carves the fleeting spirit of the West. John is a third generation native of Wyoming. He was raised and still lives on the family cattle ranch on the East Fork of the Wind River, which his grandfather established over 100 years ago. In 2007 the Finley/Duncan family received the Wyoming Centennial Farm and Ranch Award from the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. This program honors families that have owned and operated the same farm or ranch for 100 years or more. read more