When my father was sixteen, he ran away from home in North Carolina to become a cowboy. When he reached New Mexico, he stopped and went to work on the Magnolia Ranch, where he was mentored by a cowboy named Hat Roy. My childhood was full of "Hat Roy" stories, some possibly apocryphal, all delightful. There cannot have been a more quintessential cowboy than Hat Roy. Even better, I knew him to be a real person, not a larger than life literary or movie character. This fact, of course, validated all my beliefs in the superiority of the breed...
I was never to meet Hat Roy in person, or even see a picture of him. No need, really. When I started carving dolls, I knew that eventually I would carve a cowboy doll, that he would be my signature doll, and that his name would be Hat Roy. Hat Roy #1 happened almost spontaneously one evening while carving with friends after a class. He is 4 1/4 inches tall, with carved clothing. He is a limited edition of 25, and his price is $2000.
I was never to meet Hat Roy in person, or even see a picture of him. No need, really. When I started carving dolls, I knew that eventually I would carve a cowboy doll, that he would be my signature doll, and that his name would be Hat Roy. Hat Roy #1 happened almost spontaneously one evening while carving with friends after a class. He is 4 1/4 inches tall, with carved clothing. He is a limited edition of 25, and his price is $2000.
The Hat Roy Process
Hat Roy starts like many dolls, as a "blank" drawn on a block of wood, then cut out on a band saw. The coffee is an integral part of all my carvings, at least when the weather is cold.
There are almost always Hat Roy parts or accoutrements laying around my house somewhere. Or lost around my house.
There are almost always Hat Roy parts or accoutrements laying around my house somewhere. Or lost around my house.
Each part is carved to match the one before it. Usually, after carving a head that I like, I start the body, and end up by re-carving most of the pieces at least once. After littering the floor around my chair for a while, the ruined pieces will end up as kindling, and the pieces that look like a possible finished part end up littering the table for a while. It adds to the balance of nature.
Sometimes you like a face, sometimes you don't. I'm living proof that carving such a small face is not always successful. At this scale, mistakes are huge, but so are successes. Of course, it's a little unnerving to have tiny messed up heads and other miscellaneous body parts staring up at you from the floor around your feet. I try not to make eye contact.
The future for Hat Roy and friends...
Presently, I'm working on some friends for Hat Roy, most noticeably Joy Lee. Joy Lee is a tiny cowgirl with the world's best attitude, and is also named after a real person. I may also do Hat Roy and Joy Lee in a larger size. That might make it easier to find the spare parts when they're mislaid...