The Cowgirl Collab Piece
Sep 15, 2025Photo credit: Of the West Photography
With the Arizona Art of the Cowgirl event coming up soon, I felt it was appropriate to make this the first blog topic of 2025.
Collaborating on this piece with Amanda Wentz Studios and my husband Cody, from Smokin’ Burro Custom Leather, was so much fun! It was also quite the process and journey getting it designed and put together in order to get it packed up in time to go to Art of the Cowgirl in Arizona in 2024.
Here was what this piece looked like when I picked it up in 2021! A friend of mine told me back in 2021 that she had a sofa she was getting rid of that I needed to turn into something. I told her I didn’t have room for it, but she was (thankfully) insistent that it could be a great piece. So, I went to take a look at it and ended up bringing it home with no immediate plans for it. Several moves and life events later, I had completely forgotten about it in the storage box I kept some frames in.
Fast forward to 2024…
Earlier in 2024, Tammy Pate (the late founder of Art of the Cowgirl) had called me and asked me if I would be the upholstery instructor for Art of the Cowgirl. She also asked if I could upholster a couple of pieces with cowgirl art on them for the event, particularly a sofa. I immediately remembered the sofa I had purchased a few years back and exclaimed, “Oh my gosh, I have the perfect piece!” which I then followed up with, “Except, Tammy, I don’t teach….”.
But Tammy was a visionary, and I knew she saw things others did not. So I told her I would do it, not having a clue how I was going to make it all happen. After the call ended, Cody asked me what the call was about and I said, “Well, I guess I’m going to start teaching upholstery and I have some more pieces I need to get working on.”
From there, I also began planning a few upholstery workshops leading up to the Art of the Cowgirl event in order to get the kinks worked out, and make sure we had enough tools and supplies planned for the Art of the Cowgirl Upholstery Workshop participants (who were also traveling from long distances to the 2024 Art of the Cowgirl event).
I contacted my friend Amanda, from Amanda Wentz Studios, about doing the cowgirl art for the inside back of the sofa and asked my husband, Cody, if he would be willing to make a pattern to include some tooled leather on the outside back of it. From there, I needed to put the rest of the design aspects together.
Amanda, once again, did not disappoint with bringing the vision to life in her painting. I had given her a basic idea of what I was thinking and let her run with it. Not only did she include beautiful colors in the sky to compliment the cowgirl, but she set the scene to the landscape where the frame came from, complete with local wildflowers.
Left: Sierra Shores, right: Amanda Wentz. Photo Credit: kimbeerphotography.com
After Amanda had completed the art for the inside back, I was able to pull colors from the painting for the frame and the rest of the upholstery. I really wanted Amanda’s art to be the main focal point. I decided to go with some embossed floral tooled leather for the inside arms and pulled a pretty blue/green out of the painting for the frame which I then also glazed with a dark brown and then copper metallic.
Being a reproduction frame, the frame was solid, but the foundation and low number of springs in the seat made the seat uncomfortable and also hard to get out of. Since we were on a time crunch, instead of replacing and adding more springs, I opted for changing the loose cushions and deck out for a tight seat. The seat leather ended up being West Chocolate from Texas Leather Goods.
Although Cody had plenty of experience tooling leather, this was the first furniture piece he would be putting tooled leather on.
Cody first made a pattern for the area that would have tooled leather on it. After creating a template from that pattern, he began drawing.
He was able to include some of the local wildflowers from Amanda’s painting which tied it all together perfectly.
The outside back and arms ended up being a roan hair-on cowhide I had been storing for years.
The hide was one I had picked up in my travels at a leather supplier (with no immediate plans for it), and was one I was saving it for “something special”. This piece ended up being the perfect piece for it!
Photo Credit: Of the West Photography
Now, we’ll get to the part of the story where this piece found its new home!
Although this piece didn’t find a home while being on display at the 2024 Art of the Cowgirl event, I wasn’t sad about it. To date, it’s been one of my favorite pieces to put together with the collaboration and the story that went along with it, and I was perfectly fine with bringing it home to put on display.
While on our way home from Queen Creek, AZ, we decided to stop in Sedona to do a little sight seeing and change up our driving route. While we were there, Rebecca, a very sweet social media follower, asked if this piece was still available. We had been chatting off and on for a few years, and she would occasionally ask about different pieces I had available. Unfortunately, each one she had asked about over the years had already sold.
Rebecca had seen the sofa at the 2024 Art of the Cowgirl event and fell in love with it and Amanda’s art. I felt the same way about Amanda’s print as she did, and how it just pulled you in with emotion. I had joked with Amanda at one point, that I didn’t know what she was feeling when she’d painted it, but the emotion it created was very strong.
I informed Rebecca it was still available, and she’d asked about shipping to where she lived near Flagstaff, thinking we were already back home in California. Funnily enough, we were going to be driving almost right past where she lived on our way home from Arizona, and I agreed to deliver it to her the next day.
I couldn’t believe the serendipitous chain of events we had been experiencing with this piece!
Coincidently enough, Rebecca had also purchased Amanda’s original painting she had done for this piece at the Art of the Cowgirl event, and the delivery driver delivered it to her just after we had left her house from delivering the sofa!
Now both of them (the original painting and the sofa) live together in the same home. Although I wasn’t going to be upset if the sofa ended up coming home with us, I was even more ecstatic that it had found a home with someone who also loved it.
This piece would not have been the collaboration that it was without the influence of Tammy Pate. I also would not be teaching all of these gals to upholster (both online and in person) if it wasn’t for Tammy. And, I know so many other women have had a similar experience in different areas of the western industry. The legacy Tammy has left behind and the lives she touched, both directly and through a ripple affect, is insurmountable.
If you’ve learned anything about upholstering from me, thank Tammy. The hole she left is a big one, but the impact she had while she was here, and continues to have, is huge. We just never know how one small idea can develop, can change lives and can even change the world. To my customers, students and colleagues: Thank you for trusting and believing in me through it all. 
Happy upholstering!
~Sierra
