Meet the Artist/Maker
My years traveling around chasing my cowboy dreams have been the greatest
influence in my art. I’ve been drawing and loving horses since I was a kid,
leather work has given me a medium to showcase what I’ve been lucky enough to
experience while clocking the miles in the saddle. I have a deep love and
appreciation for nature, landscapes, wild cattle, and tough horses.
I love traditional gear and try to represent the different reginal styles along with the appropriate flora and fauna native to whichever region a piece is based on. Be it Nevada with sage, armitas, and bridle horses or Arizona with saguaros and shotgun chaps. If you look close enough, I try to stay true where ever the scene takes place.
Most of all
I love representing my fellow cowboy girls with my own “twist” to traditional
floral and figure carving. Hence the name and my little tag line, tradition
with a twist.
A little about me outside the art. I typically spend my summers in Colorado
and my winters in Arizona. I cowboy as a day worker for a few ranches as a side
thing, cowboying use to be my fulltime job until leather took over. I team rope
and have recently taken up breakaway roping. I typically have a horse or two I’m training
to eventually sell. But am currently enjoying my two personal horses without a
sell date. I also compete with my cowdog Eugene in cattle and sheep dog trials.
I’m an avid reader, love exploring the wilderness, traveling somewhere new,
spending time with friends. I’m still trying to be an oil painter someday, that’s
a slow work in progress. Nature, dogs, horses, and art is my life. - Kristin Allen
Training & experience
I am primary a self taught artist/maker. Around 2009 I started picking up what knowledge I could a little bit here and there along the way. Before we had wifi in ranch bunkhouses and endless online courses, I learned what I could from old books and a lot of trial and error. A fellow cowboy or two showed me enough to get me a rough start.
2010 An old saddle maker, Tom Nutgrass, taught me some more fundamentals which I continued to apply and practice on my own. Tom was more interested in rolling cigarettes, telling me old cowboy stories, and making us the best coffee ever than he was in teaching me. Unfortunately he passed away before he could share more knowledge with me.
2015 I attending a tooling workshop in Elko, NV. I met renowned leather artist Douglas Kraus, we were fast friends and after the class Kraus continued mentoring me through FB messenger, helping to refine design skills by challenge me to draw designs, he would correct my errors and have me fix them. He also encouraged me to express my own artistic style and not to get trapped in the rules of the leather craft. I owe so much to this relationship.
2016 After years of trying to improve mostly alone, I started attending various classes each year at the Prescott leather show which really made leaps and bounds in my work. And connected me to other teachers like Bob Klenda, Bob Park, and Yonezawa.
2018 Brit Nantz took an interest in my work, gifting me his online course as well as openly discussing tooling design. Nantz is who inspired me to carve tiny.
In 2018 I took a job with Coats Saddlery. I worked for them for a time in person in San Angelo, then returned to AZ but kept tooling saddles through the mail for them for several years. But my own business ended up being too busy to keep up with both roles so I resumed working solely for herself.
In 2019 Kristin I took some oil painting lessons with renowned painter Tom Browning where I really improved my painting. I continued my oil painting journey at the Scottsdale Art School where I took and oil painting class with Mitch Baird. You will see much oil painting influence in my leather scenes.
In 2023 I was featured in Western Horsman
In 2024 I won the saddle making fellowship through Art of the Cowgirl. Earning me the privilege build a saddle with maker Nancy Martini. (Photo's of the donation trailer I painted in 2023 and the teepee I painted as a Tammy Pate memorial for Art of the Cowgirl)
2026 Featured at the Telluride Art's Foundation Gallery