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Jim Brandvik's hand-engraved art is all about good luck

By ELLISE PIERCE

"Anyone with a Western bone in their body has a horseshoe," says Jim Brandvik, who creates one-of-a-kind hand-engraved horseshoes of steel with gold, silver, and copper inlays in the Texas Hill Country near Bandera.

Meant for décor rather than hooves, Brandvik's custom-made symbols of luck are commonly given as gifts, most often for weddings and commemorative events.

"There's something in the horseshoe that draws people's eye to it," he says. "If you look at the scrollwork from the early Greeks and Romans, you'll see that same curved shape in the laurel wreaths. I don't know what it is, but there's something in the human brain that likes that shape."

Although he has experimented with different artistic mediums all his life — from drawing to stone sculptures — horseshoes seemed to be the most natural canvas for Brandvik. Maybe that has something to do with his cowboy DNA.

He grew up on a cattle ranch in the Texas Panhandle that his great-great-grandfather, who was a horse trader, bought when he settled there in 1902. And Brandvik ran cattle with his father when he was young.

On the ranch, Brandvik learned not to waste anything. In that spirit, his dad used to take old horseshoes and make them into hatracks and boot scrapers.

"Although function was his primary concern, his horseshoe creations had a certain grace and beauty about them," Brandvik says. "And I think subconsciously I could see horseshoes as things other than what they were intended to be."

Brandvik won't call himself an artist — "I guess I'm kind of stingy with who I bestow that title on," he says — but anyone who sees his intricately detailed decorative horseshoes most definitely would.

Brandvik's influences run the gamut, from Western gun engravers to 16th-century European printmakers, such as German Albrecht Dürer, known for his lifelike engravings and woodcuts.

"Those guys were able to do amazing things. All they could do were straight lines, but their work fools the eye by giving the impression of a curve," he says. "And it was hard, tedious work. They pushed their graver into copper or wood. They didn't use a hammer."

In a converted hayloft on his 60-acre ranch, Brandvik replicates the ancient process, though with a 21st-century twist. Here, above the Indian paintbrush, bluebonnets, and mountain cedar trees, he creates his delicately designed horseshoes and listens to downloaded audiobooks.

He's currently "reading" Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. Between the engraving and the books, "It's heaven on earth up here," Brandvik says. "It's a quiet and meditative process."

That process begins with sketching out his designs — curls of leaves, roses, the head of a cowboy or Indian — then transferring a design to a horseshoe of forged steel with a scribe, a device that looks something like an ice pick. "I do most of this under a microscope," Brandvik says. "It allows you to see a half-inch area at a time."

Then, using a hammer and chisel — and what he calls a "miniature jackhammer," the same air-powered tool that jewelers and belt-buckle designers use — he fills in the shading and detail. And he's at it for a while: Some horseshoe designs take more than 200 hours to create from start to finish.

For Brandvik, it's a labor of love that has staying power. "I like the idea of taking something that's just plain — and taken for granted as a utilitarian object — and turning it into something that will be an heirloom and passed down for generations."

• Jim Brandvik's engraved horseshoes range from $125 to $1,100. He also creates engraved knives and horseshoe-nail pendants. To see more of his work, visit www.horseshoeengraver.com.

Issue: July 2009