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Scott and Cathy Sibley – Powell, Wyoming

Scott Sibley is one of the first names I ever heard when venturing out of Butler County, Kentucky back in the early 1980’s and started becoming aware of things that had not been produced by Hershel House or Willie White and a very few others that my limited travels had brought me into contact with. I met Scott and his wife Cathy at the home of Paul and Karen Jones in Lexington, Kentucky and must admit that Cathy’s quillwork was the first of such artwork I had ever seen. Her colorful quilled bags, knife cases, garters for leggins and the wonderful engraved powder horns that they were building as a team were all just remarkable and indeed the first such contemporary art forms that I had ever been able to handle; only seeing photographs of such high quality items before.

Scott was born in 1951, in Michigan. He and Cathy now reside in Powell, Wyoming, but have been well traveled and worked as far north as Alaska. When I ask him to tell me his story, he responded as follows:

           I started working with cow horns when I was a young boy.  I suppose the inspiration came from the TV shows   of Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone. I grew up on a farm and from time to time we would de-horn cattle giving me the raw material to work with. As a child and young adult I always wanted to be in the military and was fascinated with history. I entered the military in my late teens for a very short career. I was injured and given a medical discharge.   Upon my return to the civilian world I found that due to my injuries I could not pick up where I had left off.  I made a decision to become a teacher out of necessity to support a wife and a baby due to arrive shortly.  My dreams to be a soldier were dead but my love for history remained. During my college years a need arose for additional income. With my back injury getting a normal job was pretty much limited and so Cathy and I used what skill/talent that god had given us and slowly but surely began producing art.  As all things in their infancy our “art” was simple but sellable. We had focused on “scrimshaw” which was popular at the time. With Cathy’s skilled hands and me providing her material to work on, “ we” helped our meager budget. We went to art shows, gun shows and finally we attended a rendezvous. My boyhood interest of working with cow horns was re-kindled. At first our horns were decorated with items eagerly sought by the “Buckskinners” of the 1970,s  as time went by… having the opportunity to look at an original horn or coming across an interesting horn pictured in a book gave us a glimpse into what was to come.

     Finally graduation day came. I had struggled to support a family, lived with a painful disability and now finally had a new job - somewhere in Alaska ! We knew not a thing about what it would be like. Shortly after flying into that Eskimo Village we had somewhat of an idea.  It was like no place either of us had been before, the closest thing we had ever come to it was on the pages of National Geographic. But, there we were broke and in dire need of this job; a semi truck trailer for a house and a paint bucket for a toilet.  I had brought along my meager set of tools and a box of horns and in my spare time as much for mental therapy as for money, I made powder horns and Cathy decorated them. Soon a solid paycheck started coming in and we bought all the available books on powder horns. After reading, studying pictures… and studying some more, we finally realized what we were really suppose to be doing. Both Cathy and I do not feel like we are artists. However, we feel very lucky to have a skill which has helped us provide for ourselves and that has provided so much enjoyment to us and obvoiusly many others as well. We have alot of friends and supporters that have made our success possible… and I realize that with the pain my physical problem causes I am not always the most pleasant person to be around.  Perhaps that is why I have always chosen to live a private life and one that has taken me in sparsely inhabited places.  We now live in Wyoming; a long way from the muzzle-loading scene. Thanks to the computer age and web sites like the Contemporary Longrifle Association and very supportive friends we can work at a task we enjoy and via the Internet are able to easily make it available to others. Every horn I make, helps me feel like I still have something to offer of importance to society, albeit a small but hopefully an important segment.

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Cathy and Scott got married in 1971, and to keep you from having to figure it out…they’ve been married going on 37 years. From listening to their individual comments about one another and observing the continued success that they consistently enjoy within their partnership it is obvious that this was a union made in Heaven, and so… in response to my questions about her interest and self-perception of her work, she writes:

     I have always been interested in animals and birds and intrigued by carvings of any kind.  As a child I created small clay figures of animals from the clay found along the lakeshore where I was raised. I met Scott when we were both seniors in high school.  He was so deeply interested in history that some of it rubbed off on me. After being discharged from the service, Scott went to college to become a teacher. We both worked hard to make ends meet.  Scott went to college during the day and built powder horns and polished bone and ivory for me to engrave, working most evenings and every chance he got. It was somewhat out of necessity that I taught myself to engrave horns.

     After Scott graduated from college he got a teaching position in the armpit of Alaska, in an Eskimo village named Bethel.  It was 500 miles west of Anchorage and the only way to get there was to fly in. Scott got a position teaching 5^th grade.  I got a job as a school janitor and soon worked my way up to clerk typist and eventually the head secretary.  We were very productive while living there.  Scott made the powder horns and my job was to engrave them and I also carved Eskimo faces, birds and seals out of walrus teeth along with beaded earrings that I would take to school and sell in the teachers lounge. It was a tough existence. We subsistence fished, mainly for silver salmon.  We canned and froze the fish, quite often late into the night as we usually netted at least 100 of them at a time and we had to work at school the next day.  Scott also made fur ruffs and sold furs to the Eskimos. The wind was bitter and the winters were harsh in Bethel, so everyone needed a ruff.  Many of the Eskimos made their own, however a lot of people just didn’t know how, providing steady customers for the ruffs that Scott made. 

     Scott has been my biggest influence and has always encouraged me to try to get better and be faster and he always tries (and usually succeeds) to have several projects ready ahead of time for met to work on. I taught myself to do quillwork when we lived in Fairbanks at Scott’s insistence – he wouldn’t let me give up.  We have worked well as a team and have made many quilled pieces and engraved powder horns together over the years. I truly hope these items, that from conception to their creation have brought us so much joy and helped us survive thru the years, will also continue to bring much pleasure to those who have them.

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Following are several photographs of only a very few of the hundreds of powder horns and porcupine quill decorated items that Scott and Cathy have created. I had not intended to say any more, as I felt that the words written by Scott and Cathy along with these photographs were more than adequate to relay their personal philosophies and demonstrate the impact of their work upon the Contemporary Longrifle movement, however…I sent this post for them to read, checking for any mistakes, miss-spellings or changes that needed to be made and I just have to share this with you. In closing Scott wrote:

             …Thank You for the nice write up, it is more than I am deserving of, now Cathy is another story, she is a Saint and has always been my salvation in time of need. To quote a country song "…and she thinks she's the lucky one…"

                                                 Thanks a bundle,

                                                                           Sincerely,

                                                                                             Scott

Scott, you’re more than welcome and speaking for many, I say “ Thank You” to you and Cathy, so very much for your lifelong artistic contributions to this quickly growing world of the Contemporary Longrifle and associated art forms.

You have been a major part of it!

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