Ramontay McConnell comes from three generations of bull riding, some of which are hall of famers. It’s safe to say the rodeo and ranch life are a deep part of his history.

Photography by Jesse Cornelius

The Stetson 1520 jean has a mid-rise and a relaxed fit with a boot leg opening.

Growing up on a cattle farm in Mississippi, his family focused on raising bulls bred for the rodeo. Through that life experience he gained toughness, humility and a hard work ethic that are a part of who he is today. Every stage of his life has had some involvement in the sport. Even as a student athlete who played football at Arizona State, he still held the passion and the longing for the rodeo from a distance and helped foster it by studying agriculture.

After college Ramontay moved to Oregon where he currently lives preparing for the next stages of his career. With title belt buckles from both the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo and the Arizona Black Rodeo, Ramontay pursues moving onto a bigger platform. He pushes towards the end goal of building his own home, earned from the hard work of his hands and the skills he has as a rodeo rider.

Ramontay McConnell currently resides in Oregon where he stables his horse Ocean and prepares for the next rodeo tour. He calls Oregon his home for now, but he envisions building a house in a place like Montana after he’s done with his rodeo career. Being able to raise cattle and enjoy the freedoms of sprawling land that were alive and well in the Old American West, are the simple luxuries he hopes for in his future.

Introducing Fall 2019 new arrivals for men & women.

Photography by Marisa Anderson

The American West is a wildly fascinating thing. For over a century, art and film has highly romanticized scenes of six shooters and saloons, cowboys and indigenous, and horses galloping through rattlesnake country. For better or worse, grandiose Spaghetti Westerns with cast members falling on a spectrum from good to ugly have shaped how the world thinks of today’s American West. With so much focus on what it once was, the American West of today is often times overlooked. Some people even think it no longer exists.

Photography by Sam Raetz

Open Road 6x in Caribou

Multi-faceted artist Dani Vergés is doing his part in changing that.

Dani’s portfolio is filled with vivid scenes of cowboys moving cattle, summers in the branding pen, bucking broncos, wild bison roaming, and more. His gift to inspire thought with minimal brushstrokes is an impressive talent. With a style that is extraordinarily simple yet challenging, Dani has been drawing and painting ranch life in the American West since he was a child. The subjects of his paintings and overall interest in what today’s American West really is like has always surprised his peers at first though.

That’s because Dani doesn’t live in the West. Or the United States. Or even North America. Dani was born and raised in Barcelona, Spain, and now lives just outside the city. “I was always into things other Spanish folks weren’t — especially country music and the culture of the Western United States,” Dani said laughingly. His love for the West originated by spending time with his grandfather, who would show him films and National Geographic magazines depicting ranch life in the United States. He was so enamored that he began to recreate scenes he had seen with a pencil and watercolors. Dani’s grandfather noticed his rare talent early on, and encouraged him to sit down every day to draw once he had finished his school work.

When Dani’s grandfather passed away, his grandmother gave him a stack of his own artistic creations from his childhood. Dani’s grandfather had saved them for him.

Dani is a graphic designer by trade, but is perpetually channeling his creativity into a wide array of mediums. While he attended a university to study art, he wasn’t there long. “It was a great place to meet girls, but I didn’t really enjoy my classes or the teachers. So I left. I suppose I’ve always had issues with authority”. Dani continued, “I’m self taught. This has always been something that I’ve craved. I feel like I need to paint and I want to paint scenes from the West. It’s something I enjoy working at everyday, and I always try to be patient with myself.” Dani’s simple style is unquestionably a product of his graphic design background, as he is constantly working on logos (where almost always, less is more) for his clients.

When Dani was asked how he stayed creative with his painting:

“Creativity is one of those few things that the more you use it the more you have it. I have a creative job [as a graphic designer] because I wanted to be sure creativity was a constant in my life. I think that helps my painting a lot. Once i’m in my personal studio, I have the freedom to just do what i want. I don’t make a living off of my painting, I don’t have to answer to anyone. The only pressure I have comes from myself. Painting is my form of meditation.”

Dani was so compelled by painting and the West that he eventually accepted a temporary position at a ranch in Southern Colorado to work. It was there where he was finally able to capture Western scenes with his art firsthand (he also assisted in typically ranch work such as fixing fence and brandings). Dani would send photos home to friends and family back in Spain, and would have to explain to them he wasn’t on a movie set and that they were real people doing everyday work.

Dani has been coming back to the United States as often as he can in order to be in the place where he feels most at peace. And it’s no doubt that his grandfather, the driving force behind both his painting and love for the American West, would be incredibly proud of him.

By Preston Hoffman

The memories from our past — the soulful moments that make up our DNA and shape us into the people who we are — seem to be intangible items locked away in the safety of our memories. As we grow older, some of these memories lose the sharpness they once carried; the finer details get mixed into a lifetime worth of experiences. However, with a passion for connection and a strong desire to hear other’s stories, Kay Foye found a way to hold those memories close with bits and pieces of our past preserved into a single knife handle.

Featuring women’s new arrivals.

Items that trigger the memories that make your heart beat fast — items that take you back to those important moments in time — so that you may never forget them. Ashes from a loved one that has passed, antler from the hunt of a lifetime, tobacco from your grandfather’s pipe, seashell from those first moments your feet met the ocean, and dirt from the road you grew up on, can all live in harmony on this handle.

The journey to finding these items — is often an emotional endeavor, requiring you to dig deeply, to prioritize what moments mean the most to you, to unearth those feelings you may have tucked away. This journey requires courage.

Kay wears the Classic Western Snap Front Shirt

Kay molds these tokens into breathtaking knives with the utmost care, precision, and dedication and returns them back into your hand for you to carry at your side. The final product is a knife full of meaning and life, beauty that can’t be bought at a store. It’s a piece of art that’s made just for you so you may never lose the sharpness of what makes your heart beat fast.

“My voice… my gift, is to share their voice… their story. When I finish a knife it’s almost like looking at a landscape of their personal history fashioned in what becomes a seamless swirl of color and texture. When you really start to observe what you are connected to with careful consideration about materials that you can incorporate into a handle, it forces you to see the world in a completely different way.” — Kay Foye

“Everything becomes a possibility. Memories from your past become repurposed to create new memories in your future. Artifacts from your life become frozen in time and given a new life and meaning. No matter how technologically advanced we become, a knife will always remain a simple and constant necessity. I believe that something so necessary to our survival in this world should be crafted with materials that are so necessary to the survival of our souls.” — Kay Foye

By Maaike Bernstrom

Maria and Andrew Coughlin live in a small seaside town outside of Newport, RI called Tiverton along with their Bernese Mountain Dogs Whiskey (8mo) and Moose (3). Andrew is a wooden boat builder and boat captain; Maria is a photographer and former boat captain. They bought “Seven Girls” in September 2018 up in Elliot, Maine. They were on the lookout for a wooden lobster boat that they could transform into a comfortable cruiser for their family.

“Seven Girls” is a wooden 33-foot, 1960 Ralph Stanley lobster boat, originally built by Ralph for his father and named after his seven sisters, in Southwest Harbor, Maine. In 1999, Ralph Stanley received a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship and now the lines drawings for “Seven Girls” are in the Library of Congress (fun fact!).

Phil Howes is a former game warden for the state of New Mexico and currently works as a ranch and game manager for a private ranch outside of Santa Fe. Diane, Phil’s wife, is a botanist by education and a horse trainer by trade, and their daughter, Katie, is studying Adventure Education with the intention of working as a wilderness therapist. What’s interesting about the Howes family is the level at which they interact with nature and the type of stewarding that they practice.

Story & Photography by Corey Woosley

When Phil worked as a game warden, he was in charge of a section of about a million acres and was the sole warden for that area. Phil’s approach to his work is nothing short of scientific, but it’s executed in a rugged way that the environment demands. He is rich with stories from the backcountry, like capturing bighorn sheep and relocating them with a helicopter to new areas where the former population had been depleted, and doing the same with Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout moving the live fish on horseback from some otherwise unreachable place in the wilderness.

Phil gets to do the same thing with his current job on a smaller scale, but with far greater attention to detail. With the ranch’s new owners and their shared views on wildlife and sustainability, Phil has had the ability to use the ranch as a blank canvas and he has put his vast knowledge to good use to create something truly special. Since his partnership with the current ranch owners, the property has seen an incredible influx of elk, mule deer, turkey, trout, mountain lions, and bears to name a few.

When the Howes’ family aren’t working, they spend much of their free time together in the backcountry with their horses or fly fishing the nearby Pecos River. It’s refreshing to spend time with people whose lives are spent not only in the outdoors enjoying its benefits but working to cultivate its wildness instead of trying to tame it.

Sadly, most people barely have the opportunity to step off the sidewalk anymore, let alone into the backcountry. And that’s why the Howes’ life is something to stop and admire. The reality is, we all can’t live and work like the Howes’ do, but we could learn a thing or two from them about the beauty of keeping the wild places wild.