Livin’ a Texas legacy

Most fine, custom cowboy bootmakers have at least a passing awareness of the artists and artisans who preceded them. But few live that legacy as fully as Zephan Parker, who hangs his bootmaking shingle in wide-open H-town, the frontier space-age megalopolis named for Sam Houston, one of the most maverick Texans who ever lived.

Zephan grew up in Sam’s town. “Cowboy culture, of course, was a big part of my childhood,” he says. “My mother’s father and her brothers were all noted horsemen. My own father’s world was the polar opposite—he played in an inner-city rock band. I grew up very interested in art, particularly word-and-letter-based art in the form of graffiti.” All these ingrained elements merged fortuitously in the art of bootmaking. “Each of the fundamentals I found in art—curves, symmetry, balance—they all apply in bootmaking.”

A move to small-town Texas sparked Zephan’s cowboy boot odyssey. “Some family friends owned a place that was great for hunting near Gatesville (just west of Waco), and a job opportunity came up with Gatesville’s public works department. That