Kristina Dolgilevica talks to an archery leather goods maker Rob Morton, from Texas, USA
Photographer – with permission Hamid Shokoohi @hamidshokouhiequine
The Flying Hun Archery opened shop in 2014 at Sherwood Forest Faire in McDade, Texas, USA. The shop exhibits for several months at a time at numerous fairs or Renaissance festivals, where various craftspeople exhibit their work and engage in historic or period activities – a Disneyland for the lovers of all forms of medievalism, where period garments are welcome and blue jeans are a no-go. The Flying Hun’s founder and craftsman Rob Morton is a highly experienced leather goods maker and an international horseback archery competitor. Atypical to the United States, The Flying Hun stocks Eastern/Eurasian style archery equipment, but what truly sets them apart are their leather goods. I speak to Rob about his craft, his exceptional quivers, the traditional archery scene and customer demands in the USA.
Tell us a bit about how it all started and your team
Back in 2014, there really wasn’t anyone making Eurasian and Asiatic style leather items. It was more of a send your money to Turkey or send your money off into the ether and hopefully you get something back that’s usable. A little before that I’d made some items for my personal use and really it was just to try to have some equipment I could use in competition. But eventually it turned into a business because more people were interested in it.
I have a team of people that work in my physical shops, but they are mostly made-up of archers and other people I’ve met in my archery journey. It’s kind of difficult to find people in my business because so many are not really interested in archery, and you have to be if you want to work with me.
Who are your customers?
Our main customers are Renaissance fair patrons, and most are ground archers, but I do sell to some horseback archers. However, in the USA today there is a shift in horse archery more towards the modern take, sports-oriented, so that doesn’t really go well with all the historical items I make. The Flying Hun Archery would have been the kind of business ten or more years ago I wished existed so I could just walk in and ask questions. But I had to figure it all for myself.
What do your patrons buy? Bestsellers?
The most specific thing I think people come in for are bows, and more generally, the higher-end bows like Grozer; quivers come in as a close second. Grozer makes some incredible laminates and composites, and I think I probably sell more of his bows than anyone else. In the United States, people tend to be familiar with the longbows or Native American style bows, but when they see the curves of the strung vs the unstrung Asiatic bow, it really makes an impression, and they are just captivated by the shape.
My historic bestseller is probably the Ottoman style riding quiver. Its original is found in Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and it’s really been a quiver that I redesigned to be more mounted-archery-specific. Though beautiful, the original was a little on the small side for my taste, so I added a few things to it and changed the design just a little bit to hold more arrows, to be more useful for horseback archery.
More generally, right now, my biggest sellers have been my pouches and bags. In the Renaissance Fair world, we need something to carry out stuff in because we don’t have pockets. Thumb rings are another big and popular product.
How many product lines do you have and is your work entirely handmade?
Most of my stuff is Ottoman style quivers. I’ve made Manchurian, Persian, Tibetan, a few different other styles. Right now, I make about 6 different styles of quivers, and I can make more models. I digitise patterns, I tend to create multiple versions of things and iterations as I go, discontinuing original models and making new ones. This means that as I progress, my work changes at the same time. I have fifteen styles of quivers digitised at the moment so I can pull from a pretty large library of products I’ve made in the past in case someone wants something particular.
My work used to be entirely handmade, but running a shop and being a one-man operation I had to find some different ways of making things. A few years ago, I switched to using laser technology to put the images that I’ve built, but most of that is just for putting the designs down on the leather. There are still countless hours involved in finishing the pieces out by hand, so predominantly the pieces are built entirely by hand and by me. I do have a stitching machine, but it’s not electric, it is a one-stitch-at-a-time per handle pull type of machine. I still do a lot of hand stitching, but because of the volume I have to produce, it’s just not cost effective to do everything by hand the traditional way anymore. If a customer comes to me and says: “I absolutely have to have a piece made by hand”, I can do it. It’s going to cost more, but I can do it.
Why do you focus on Eastern Eurasian style of equipment?
Lack of availability of equipment here in the United States. It was like that when I started out and I still feel like there are plenty of bowmakers, but most of the quivers are still done inaccurately and largely wrongly. I know that’s kind of tough to say, but there’s a lot of bad ones out there.
Are your products inspired by historic design or are they close to authentic copies?
I would say the majority of my pieces are actually made one to one from original items found in museums and books. I use a lot of reference materials and because I digitise everything, it tends to be that they are one to one scale, and I try to get them as close as possible in terms of size, occasionally changing that if I feel like the size is maybe a little too small for the contemporary archer’s use. But they function almost identically to the originals. Everything I do is very heavily tested. I do a lot of testing on horseback and ground, and have people wear them and try them out.
Artwork-wise, that’s where I tend to do my own thing. My products have become somewhat iconic, so if you see one of my pieces and another piece out in the wild, you will almost instantly know which is mine.
How close to authentic are the materials you use? What are your primary materials?
My number one material is just regular old vegetable tanned cowhide. It’s very ubiquitous here in the United States and every leather store tends to carry a great selection of thicknesses and grades. I use the highest grade so that all of my finishing techniques show off the colours. I tend to use Persian, Turkish and Arab fabrics for a lot of my base pieces and pouches, and I use goat skin for trim.
The originals, however, tended to have many layers, different construction methods, but for the most part the construction methods I employ are similar, and I use the more modernised materials which, in my opinion, are better and harder wearing. Modern users tend to be very tough on their equipment. That’s not to say that war and things like that weren’t hard on equipment in the past. The assumption is that if quivers were damaged, they were thrown out, and I imagine that was usually the case. Besides, we don’t see a lot of the pieces that were pulled out of the ground and kept in museums that don’t look good. So when I’m making something for a user now, I make it as beautiful as possible and also as foolproof as possible, so that even the lesser-skilled user cannot break it; I use some rivets where other people would probably saw pieces. In terms of materials, I think if I wanted to build an original style quiver done in the real way, it can be done, but my way tends to yield better results [more practical to the modern user].
Do you have a favourite tool or material you like to work with?
I love regular vegetable tan cow leather. You can do anything with it. Typically, it’s used here in the United States for saddles and any other leather craft you might do. But it’s almost like working with a blank canvas; you can do incredible stuff and, depending on the quality, you can find something that is almost pearl white, so it takes dyes and paints and colourings unlike any other kind of leather, and playing with that gives you some real great options.
What is the biggest challenge in working with historic remnants?
The biggest problem with finding historical examples is the museums themselves. Private collections tend to be a bit more forgiving when it comes to handling original pieces. Large museums will always want things like grants or money or book deals. They want money associated with being able to go in and look at original pieces. I feel it’s really slowed down the game for a lot of the historical makers. Occasionally you get a sympathetic curator or someone that will let you come in and take a look, but largely once they’re behind glass, they stay there forever, and a lot of pieces go into a box and are never seen; a lot of pieces that would be helpful, sort of just fall off the map. Nevertheless, I managed to do it a couple of times and I’ve seen some really incredible stuff up close and personal.
Do you have a favourite historical example of a quiver? Why does it appeal to you?
Yes, it is one of the very first Ottoman quivers I ever saw was in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. I went over when I was a little kid. I don’t remember anything from that time, but when I was seventeen, I went back with my mom, and I remember going into the museum, and it was full of arms and armour, all Western European, beautiful stuff, Germanic, Bohemian, that kind of thing. But there was one room off in the back corner and that was the Turkish chamber, and it was set aside from the rest, and it was all of the war trophies from the Second Siege of Vienna [First Siege – 1521; second – 1683]. Those were incredible pieces that were very different from the rest of the museum, pieces that were covered in fabric and textures, and patterns I’ve never seen. All of it is very ornamental and when I walked in there, it just kind of blew my mind. Going back to it later with renewed interest, a lot of the pieces that are in that section are the foundation for my work now and it really made an impression on me. So just the whole room as a cohesive unit, it’s incredible stuff and there are some quivers, arrows and bows, and things there that you don’t see in a lot of other museums, the quality of which is, of course, incredibly high. Specifically, Ottoman style Turkish quivers that are there, is what really appealed to me – it’s just such a change in shape from most western style equipment that it just kind of imprinted itself on my brain.
What skill set do you need to be a successful archery leather goods maker?
Just spending as much time as you can making things and doing so consistently. Learning the basics of leather work is essential; the big ones being how to cut straight, how to cut properly, how to finish edges, how to really hone in your finishing work when it comes to dyes, paint stains, things like that. That’s what sets amateurs from professionals.
Advice on how to look after a leather quiver and make it last.
Best thing I can tell you is wipe it down after you’re done using it, particularly if you’ve been on horseback. There are some good leather conditioners out there. But really if they’re built to last you don’t have to do a lot of maintenance on them. In terms of the artwork and paint, a lot of that is consumable, so I tend to repaint and help people clean up pieces that have come back into my shop in the need of a touch up.
Advice to craftspeople who want to create a historic quiver piece.
Books. Lots and lots of books and historical websites. For example, if you’re going to build a Manchurian quiver, Peter Decker’s website, www.mandarinmansion.com has a photo library and is an incredible resource that gives you an idea on how to put things together. Try to gather as much information as possible about how they were shaped.
Don’t be afraid to experiment. It’s essential to try out different styles, different shapes. Experiment a little bit to figure out how it works best for you and what made them really successful in the past.
Learn to cut properly. Same goes for stitching. I see a lot of bad stitching and bad cuts, so practise your craft a lot and practise it diligently with the intent of trying to understand these pieces and how you can make the final product something you could be proud of.
Thank You Rob, best of luck in future endeavours!
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