from the Archives, "Measured in Heartbeats"

In January 1997, I was a marketing specialist for a corporate management company and feeling very unfulfilled. To try to fill the void, I had started working with the Japanese government to find unique Wyoming products and export them to Japan. Having been an exchange student to Japan when I was 16, I felt a special connection to the land of the rising sun.

In my search, I stumbled across the Western Design Conference. The event was a mere three years old and had already experienced several incarnations. I was fascinated. Being a fifth generation Wyoming native and having grown up in the Cowboy state, I thought I was pretty savvy about what happened within its borders, but I had never heard of the Western Design Conference.

After a successful buyers meeting with Mike Patrick, one of the event’s founders, I was asked if I would consider the executive director’s position at the Conference. What a delightful, unexpected turn of events. After phone calls, interviews and meetings, I knew I wanted the job more than anything else I had ever wanted.

A nerve wracking few days passed before I got the call. I was the new executive director! What I didn’t know was that this was the beginning of an incredible journey that would define my future.

Restructuring a fabulous event that had already outgrown its clothes was my first challenge and I welcomed that challenge. In truth, I didn’t know what I was doing, but I had ideas and charged ahead to implement them.

Over six years, I poured my blood, sweat and tears into the Conference. Never had I experienced anything so rewarding and frustrating at the same time. Looking back, I have no regrets. I learned so much, made friends that continue to inspire me everyday and most of all, I found that niche that I had been looking for: western design. For the first time in a long time I felt fulfilled. The experience is the reason I am writing to you today, the reason that I feel so strongly about western craft, fashion and art, the reason I found purpose in my life.

I have never forgotten the words of Suzanne Warner at an awards breakfast a number of years ago at Cassie’s. She said, “The time we put into our pieces is not measured in days, hours or minutes, but heartbeats.” To me that said it all. The pieces created by this phenomenal group of artists are not works that are made just to sustain them every day, but creations that are infused with a part of their soul. I wear a bracelet made by Suzanne and every time I put it on, I wonder just how many heartbeats it took to create. The light and love it holds is evidence of the power of creating by hand and with the guidance of one’s soul.

May every life that is touched by an artist retain a piece of the inspiration to pass on to another.

Originally published on the first contemporarywesterndesign.com website September 2007