Tools of the vaquero

As a child, Luis Ortega learned to braid rawhide from a 104-year-old Chumash vaquero, or cowboy. Ortega grew up on a ranch near Santa Barbara and went on to become the go-to guy for braided rawhide horse gear. His ornate reins, lariats and other works adorned the best vaquero kits and collector cases for a good chunk of the 20th century. The craftsman, who died in 1995, was a vaquero himself and today might be dubbed a horse whisperer as well. He was famed for his knack for gentling training horses with the intricately crafted, California-style hackamore, a device designed to be gentler than a bit when training a colt. In the 1930s, he made the leap from horseman to full-time rawhide artist and attracted a clientele that was willing to pay for his extraordinarily labor-intensive artifacts, which he divided into three categories: working horsemen’s gear, fancier items for the show arena and prime pieces made purely for collecting. An exhibition of more than 100 of Ortega’s works continues through Monday at the Museum of the American West (the former Autry Museum of Western Heritage) in Griffith Park. The pieces -- bridles, hackamores, lariats, hobbles, even some clever miniatures -- were created not only to be beautiful but to go easy on a horse’s hide. More ornate items use extremely fine strands of colored rawhide to stunning effect. Ortega’s forebears were no slouches either; he came from an influential family that included the first European to discover San Francisco Bay by land. Go to www.museumoftheamericanwest.org/ or call (323) 667-2000.

-- Carolyn Huffman Kimball