Creating order and beauty from raw materials ran in Gordon Andrus’s family. His grandfather was an industrial arts teacher, who taught pupils how to work in many mediums including leather.
“My grandfather never met a raw material that he didn’t like,” remembers Gordon.
In 1974, Gordon Andrus was in the ninth grade in Glenwood, Utah, when his grandfather passed away. Gordon inherited his grandfather’s set of leather tools. These included the stamps that he’d made himself out of nails, as well as some Tandy Crafttools. There was no swivel knife, so Gordon improvised with a buckstitching chisel. Gordon’s basement bedroom was soon taken over by a leather shop as he learned how to tool and repair leather. Gordon didn’t have a sewing machine, so he learned to rely on buckstitching and hand sewing for construction.
Gordon’s father was a uranium geologist. When he was 14, Gordon went to work for his dad’s company in the summers. He traveled through the mountains and deserts of southern Utah.
“I saw incredible places that nobody ever goes,” says Gordon.
Gordon developed an appreciation of the West from his travels.
During his junior and senior years, Gordon was able to take extra courses in art at a local trade tech school. A teacher there encouraged him and helped him with his drawing skills.
Eventually, the family moved to Denver. When Gordon was 21, he went to work for Keyston Brothers. The large production shop was just down to a skeleton crew of six by then. Gordon would start
