Award-winning braider a ‘by myself’ type person
Being famous ‘isn’t my big deal,’ Billy Albin says.
Being in the spotlight really isn’t Billy Albin’s scene.
But now that he’s been recognized as braider of the year by the Academy of Western Artists, the light has arrived.
“Being famous or recognized, that isn’t my big deal,” he said. “I don’t care; the less publicity I get, the bet- ter off I think I am.”
A friend in Florida, Domingo Hernandez, nominated Albin for his award, sending pictures of his work. It’s a safe bet he wouldn’t have done it himself.
In fact, when Albin’s daughter Lauri was asked about a reporter interviewing him, she thought it unlikely. No one was more surprised when he agreed.
“Well, I’m just being nice,” he said, chuckling.
But Albin feels more comfortable working alone than in a crowd.
“I’m a ‘by myself ’ person,” he said. “Because most of the years, most of my work has been by myself.”
His three favorite pastimes are braiding, looking for arrowheads and gathering a wild cow by himself.
“I can get a cow to respond to my method of gathering, whereas when someone is with me I can’t get it done,” he said. “They might be a little out of place, or a little too fast, or a little too something.”
Albin lives with his wife, Glenda, off a country road several miles south of town. They’ve been there 40 years, and looking out his workshop’s single window, he points to ridge about a quarter-mile to the east.
“I was raised just past those trees,” he said. “I’ve been here all my life.”
Glenda Albin said it’s not unusual for his pickup to sit in the same spot for two or three weeks, unused. That’s not to say he hasn’t left, however.
“I feed some cows for a lady over here three days a week by riding my horse when I go, and they’ve got a feed truck over there,” he said, laughing. “So I don’t leave the place unless it’s on horseback.”
For most of his life he’s been making quirts, hackamores and other tack items. Quirts are leather-wrapped sticks used for encouraging livestock into a pen or down a chute.
A hackamore is sort of like a bridle but without the bit in the horse’s mouth.
He taught himself how to do it. A cowboy learns what lasts and what will turn to trash too soon.
“I haven’t had five jobs in my life, and none of them lasted very long,” he said. “I day-worked for a long, long time.”
What’s day work? Listening to Albin, it’s all the stuff cowboys do in the movies.
A rancher usually has a regular number of hands permanently employed, but sometimes there’s a need to temporarily hire a few more.
“They hire extra help when they brand, wean or anything else,” Albin said. “You might go one day; you might go for a month.
“All you’re involved with is the fun part of ranching. You don’t ... have to do the dirty work in between. Building a fence, checking waters and feeding — you don’t do any of that. You just go brand the calves and wean them.”
It’s fun, but it’s also physical. About age 50, Albin started thinking about tapering off.
“Glenda said I ought to do this full time,” he said, gesturing to several quirts drying on a rack by the door. “But my answer was I would just sell it to all my friends and then that would be it.”
He doesn’t make anything that isn’t already sold. He doesn’t advertise, and the only show he goes to is at Abilene’s Western Heritage Classic.
“Selling is not my priority. I’m not making it to sell; I’m making it to make,” he said.
“I want to retire so I can stay in here and braid all the time, but braid what I want to braid,” he said. “I just want to make things that are challenging; I’m a habitual experimenter, I guess.”