{"id":2184,"date":"2014-05-23T07:46:43","date_gmt":"2014-05-23T13:46:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=2184"},"modified":"2014-05-23T07:46:43","modified_gmt":"2014-05-23T13:46:43","slug":"bootmaker-values-his-craft-and-his-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2014\/05\/bootmaker-values-his-craft-and-his-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"Bootmaker values his craft\u2014and his freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mike<\/a>

Chris Ryan<\/p>

Mike Ryan at work in his Helena bootmaking shop.<\/p><\/div>\n

HELENA \u2014 Mulish perseverance and defiant self-sufficiency are as much a part of a craftsman\u2019s longevity as flair and skill.<\/p>\n

Helena bootmaker Mike Ryan, a native of Brusett, has never been one to put his fate in others; his fate stays in his own hands.<\/p>\n

Those hands \u2014 resembling the stubby, muscular claws of a bear \u2014 turn, twist and shape boots on his assembly line of one. Those sawdust-discolored, rock-solid paws peg the soles, rather than nail them, with beeswax-covered wooden pegs. Those hands look incapable of exhaustion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look forward to work here every morning, and that\u2019s something most people don\u2019t do,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cYou got to have your freedom, your independence. I know what I\u2019m facing every day, and that\u2019s why I like working here. I don\u2019t do it for the money. My freedom. It\u2019s a cool deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryan\u2019s shop at 919 Euclid Ave. is a bit of a joy ride: there is the momentum of concentrated work in a setting of blackened tables and vintage heavy machinery. And there is laughter, there are visitors, there is the sustained banter with his daughter and assistant, Chris.<\/p>\n

When locked in his work, however, Ryan is never distracted. He stands alert against the backdrop of rows and rows of boots, stacks of old-fashioned lasts (shoe and boot molds), and vintage industrial-strength tools and machines. On his homemade work bench there are seven pairs of boots in many stages of assembly \u2014 one requires the attention of the sole-stitchery, then a pause, and then another is worked on with a stretcher. Then Ryan is on to the next boot.<\/p>\n

Lining the shop wall, there are approximately 1,200 pairs of lasts, including ropers and pointed toe, narrow and round toe, square toe, narrow square toe, wide square toe, as well as loggers and packers.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people don\u2019t know the difference,\u201d Ryan said, pointing to a pair of steel-toed boots he is resoling for a local trucker who works in the North Dakota oil fields.<\/p>\n

Ryan is a throwback to the days of finger-dialed phones and face-to-face conversations.<\/p>\n

\"Ryan\"<\/a>

Chris Ryan<\/p>

Ryan says a pair of handmade boots will last seven times longer than a factory-made pair.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a mechanic, a marriage counselor, all the things you need to be qualified for shoe making. People come in and bring up that this happened and that happened. You need to step aside and listen.\u201d<\/p>\n

He scoffed at the conventions of a throwaway society.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s all disposable,\u201d he said. \u201cMicrowaves and appliances go to the dump because it costs less than repairs. Shoes are the same way.\u201d
\nBoots made in Ryan\u2019s shop are the antithesis of disposable, the enemy of temporary. Their exacting detail is impressive, but their longevity makes them even more valuable.
\n\u201cThey will outlast a boot made in a mass-produced factory by seven times, if taken care of,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ryan, 62, was born and raised in Brusett, northwest of Jordan in Garfield County. He remembers receiving an Acme boot catalog in the mail in 1962. That catalog planted the seed of later exploration. He served in Vietnam from 1969 to 1973, then used veterans assistance programs to help subsidize bootmaking courses in trade school.<\/p>\n

In 1985, he apprenticed under Mike \u201cThe King of the Bootmakers\u201d Ives of Lockwood, the unincorporated town across the Yellowstone River from Billings. From Ives he learned how to individualize the personality of each boot.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was an old guy when he taught me,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cIn the 1930s, he had to support his family as a cabinet maker, and then he took up bootmaking, because people had to have shoes. I guess what I learned from him was that you\u2019ve got to have the want \u2014 the want to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryan moved to Helena in 1986 and relocated to Euclid Avenue a few years ago. There were five bootmakers in Helena when he started. Ryan has outlasted them all.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one thing that hasn\u2019t changed with my boots since then is the lack of nails. I peg the arches, sew the soles. These are all wooden-pegged. Peg the arch, peg the heel on. The only steel that\u2019s in these boots is the nails that hold the heel cap on and the steel arch.<\/p>\n

\u201cI put in about 24 man-hours in a pair of boots. About 16 hours in a pair of laceups. I can make seven pair of laceups in two weeks, easy. Eight pairs of cowboy boots takes me about a month, or close to it. I\u2019m not making very good wages, but it\u2019s kind of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>Ryan said he would teach his craft to anyone who was totally up for the challenge. He concedes, though, that such craftsmanship is more or less outmoded.<\/p>\n

\u201cBootmaking is gone,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople in Europe make shoes. I don\u2019t know of anyone overseas that makes boots. It\u2019s gone. It\u2019s over. There are a few people.\u201d<\/p>\n

As soon as he completes this sentence, another thought springs into his head.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like the governor of the state of Montana to look at his Chinese shoes while he is putting them on in the morning. I want him to look down at them, and wonder why he has a pair of Chinese shoes, when he could have a pair made right here. Why is he wearing Chinese shoes when he could come down here and have them made?\u201d
\nAt 62, Ryan is thick-skinned, opinionated, genial and full of know-how. And he is still learning: a few years ago he went to a school to learn how to make men\u2019s dress shoes.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople that retire, they quit doing stuff and they die,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I retire, I\u2019m going to make boots.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HELENA \u2014 Mulish perseverance and defiant self-sufficiency are as much a part of a craftsman\u2019s longevity as flair and skill. Helena bootmaker Mike Ryan, a native of Brusett, has never been one to put his fate in others; his fate stays in his own hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[706,708,705,707,704],"class_list":["post-2184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-montana","tag-brusset","tag-garfield-county","tag-helena","tag-jordan","tag-mike-ryan","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}