sense of rural Texas with every chair, bed, and table they produce, though angular bases in colors like neon orange, pale aqua, and deep red lend a modern feel and balance out the earthier elements. Each piece of made-to-order furniture is started and finished in their Marfa workshop, but to keep up with the high demand (they have a ten-to-twelve-week waiting list), a handful of workers in El Paso also help out with production. This fall they will debut a low-back dining chair and sling lounge chair made from canvas. garzamarfa.com
How many years have you two been in Marfa?
Jamey Garza: Ten years, I think. I came to work on the furnishing for Liz Lambert’s renovation of the Thunderbird Hotel. When we left Los Angeles, we had in our heads that we’d do this twelve-month project at the Thunderbird and then we’d go to Austin, where I’m from.
What’s the first thing you do in the morning?
JG: I panic. I try to start with correspondence stuff at the beginning of the week. Then usually by Wednesday I have more shop time. Because we’re still developing pieces, the Marfa workshop is very much always on.
What’s the studio like?
JG: This property was West Texas Utilities; they ran the trucks out of it and stored things here. It’s maybe 1,200 square feet and divided into a metal shop and a woodshop. It’s steel-frame, no insulation, a lot of lighting. It tends to always be humming with circulating fans. It’s about 98 degrees in the shop today. But it’s a pleasant 98.
Constance works on the furniture with you, but she makes other things too, right?
JG: She’s making tablecloths, place mats, napkins, and other tabletop items that go hand in hand with what we’re already doing.
What spurs your creative energy?
JG: I always wanted to make things. My grandfather had a radiator/welding repair shop in East Austin, so that was the beginning. My other grandparents were farmers in Jarrell, and my grandmother’s house had homemade things like egg-carton lamp shades and wreaths made from six-pack rings. The first thing I ever made was a seat for my drum kit. My brother and I worked construction jobs in the summer, and being part of that kind of environment was just natural.
Dos Carolinas
Principal: Caroline Matthews | Location: San Antonio
Back in 1987, Alpine native Caroline Matthews heard from a friend who had been searching for a cotton guayabera and come up empty-handed. Apparently no one made the traditional garb (also known as Mexican wedding shirts) in natural, breathable fibers such as cotton, linen, wool, and silk—a necessity in the Texas heat. So Matthews, who’d just lost her job as an assistant manager at Sears, decided to put her degree in clothing and textiles from Texas Tech University to work and whip one up. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing since. Today, with help from a team of seamstresses, Matthews produces ready-to-wear shirts and shirtdresses for her two retail locations (in San Antonio and Houston), as well as custom creations for dedicated clients. doscarolinas.com
First of all, what constitutes a guayabera?
It’s basically a barn jacket. Every Spanish-speaking country has a version of it. There’s always some kind of vertical design down the front. Sometimes it’s embroidery, sometimes it’s just pleats. And the four front pockets are pretty much a Cuban thing.
What does the name mean?
It comes from the guayaba, or guava pickers who worked Latin American plantations.
How many different ways have you heard “guayabera” pronounced?
Oh my word! Some people call it the guacamole shirt. Others say “guayabera” with a flat inflection, with a hard g and b. But the proper way to pronounce it is with a soft Spanish g. It sounds like “why-ya-vehra.”
Weldon Lister Engraving
Principal: Weldon Lister | Location: Boerne
Weldon Lister was just a teenager when his father began teaching him the vanishing art of hammer-and-chisel hand engraving. Thirty-four years later, the retired San Antonio Fire Department lieutenant is now the man people like George W. Bush call when they want engravings and gold inlays for valuable possessions such as firearms, belt buckles, knives, and jewelry. When working with guns, which is what he’s best known for, Lister starts by giving the stripped-down piece a thin coating of oil, dusting it with talcum powder, and sketching his design directly on the body with a pencil. Then, tap by tap, he inscribes the steel surface with richly detailed scrolls and illustrations of running horses, buffalo, and wild game. Though he concedes that air tooling has made it easier for others to take up engraving, Lister remains committed to the method he learned, thereby keeping the family tradition alive. weldonlister.com
Did you always want to be an engraver?
My dad [who died in 2009] was an artist and a master engraver. When I was seventeen years old someone told me, “One of these days your dad’s not gonna be here, so you better learn how to do this.” So my dad said, “I’ll show you everything I know.”
Why don’t you use power tools?
The way I learned is very time-consuming and difficult. Unless you have someone to show you, it’s hard to learn it on your own, and in the fifties it almost died out in the United States. But it’s my comfort zone. I have complete confidence in my abilities.
Do you have a typical client?
I’ve done a lot of work for Texas Rangers, especially the old-school guys. They definitely use their guns. Then you get into really nice, expensive guns for wealthy business guys, and those are 99 percent never going to be fired. And I do barbecue guns.
Wait. What’s a barbecue gun?
It’s a gun you bring out to impress your compadres. It’s like a hot-rod gun .
What’s the most expensive gun job you’ve ever done?
The most expensive was $40,000, but I’ve got a $2,000 minimum. It gets you about 50