by Diana Lambdin Meyer

Work from Kiser Iron Works.

His work is forged nearly 250 miles west of Dallas in the tiny community of Paint Rock, Texas, population 230. In a storefront on the town square that was originally built as a car dealership in 1929, Kiser is building a name for himself while creating furniture and architectural elements that are finding themselves in some of the best homes and communities of the Southwest.

A native of El Paso who graduated from high school with plans of becoming an accountant, Kiser now laughs at the pitiful condition of his bookkeeping and the business aspect of his work.

“I can’t imagine sitting behind a desk all day looking at numbers,” he says. “I would much rather be creating and designing than dealing with the business.”

After attending a vocational school, Kiser worked for a few years as a welder doing fabrication and structural work for office buildings across Texas. But he wasn’t particularly happy in his work. Then one day, he saw a magazine profiling the work of Tom Joyce, an awarding-winning blacksmith from Santa Fe.

“I was so inspired by what he was doing and I knew right away that that’s what I wanted to be doing,” Kiser says. That was in 1992.

So Kiser attended a blacksmithing workshop at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina, and followed up his training with a couple of workshops in New Mexico. He now is a member of the Artist-Blacksmith’s Association of North America (ABANA), which has become an additional source of education and professional development.

Randy Kiser in his workplace in rural Paint Rock, Texas.

“Blacksmithing really hasn’t changed that much over the years, so I read lots of old books and information, but it comes down to that actual hands-on experience and inspiration, which ABANA provides for me,” Kiser says.

As any metal worker knows, finding a large amount of workspace at an affordable price is always a challenge. The answer for Kiser came in the 50,000 square feet of the former auto dealership in Paint Rock, about 30 miles east of San Angelo, where a large network of family and artist friends helped build his dream.

The big job at the Vaquero Country Club in Dallas came in 2002 from the friend of a friend of one of those friends, which reinforces for Kiser the value of networking and word-of-mouth — his primary forms of marketing and advertisement.

“It’s nice to have a large amount of work going to one place like Vaquero, rather than lots of one-time projects that require a lot of drive time and visits,” he says. He learned that he saved time and became more productive on projects that had repetitive elements such as the street signs.

At about the same time, Kiser began getting some big jobs for individual builders and architects of upscale homes throughout the Texas Hill Country. A balustrade he created for one such home was included in the cover photo for the 2004 Hill Country Parade of Homes Tour magazine, distributed to more than 7,000 potential home buyers and builders.

“I was getting a lot of calls, but I think it was a mistake in that I took on too wide a variety of projects,” he says. “If you’re within your market, you save some time learning new processes and I was spending way too much time on some projects just figuring out what I was doing.”

Illness Provides Focus

Sometimes life has a way of providing focus and perspective. In the midst of all of this success and variety, Kiser was diagnosed with cancer.

After two years of attention to his medical needs, he came to the conclusion that he should move away from the large, one-of-a-kind architectural pieces that require so much of his time and energy. Now he focuses on custom furniture such as tables and beds, and castings for hardware such as knobs and pulls for cabinetry. He’s also creating a line of fireplace tools and screens.

“These are objects, that once I design them, can continue to be in production without my day-to-day attention,” he says. “Before, if I wasn’t here, everything in the shop sat idle and you can’t pay bills that way.”

Kiser has two full-time employees who can follow his designs and instructions, thus freeing him up for more creative elements and to develop a more professional presentation of his hardware line. He also enjoys collaborating with a close friend and wood worker on furniture that combines mesquite and native woods with the natural look of iron.

The hardware items wholesale for $10 to $12 each, but a new line of wine stoppers with a mesquite-wood base is wholesaling for about $75 at hardware store showrooms in San Antonio, Dallas and Austin. Kiser often sells directly to builders and architects who have seen his work in other upscale properties.

“The best part of my work is getting to know these architects and builders,” Kiser says. “If I had it all to do over again, I think I would have gone to college to become an architect, but instead, I get to work with some really creative people who appreciate my work.”

Despite his attempts to scale back and spend more time with family and self, Kiser finds the big jobs keep finding him. He’s about seven months behind on completing such projects as gates and railings for outdoor water gardens and sometimes just doesn’t respond to inquiries about other jobs.

For other blacksmiths and sculptors, Kiser believes the custom home market in the Texas Hill Country is wide open and will continue to be strong for several years. He could have as much work in the region and medium as he wants, but has chosen the less time-consuming and intense art form at this stage of his life.

Iron is a medium that complements timber-frame and stone homes and businesses throughout the West,” he says. “I think there’s plenty of work to be had here, and there’s a lot of open space for all of us to spread out and do our thing.”

Diana Lambdin Meyer is a Parkville, Mo.-based free-lance writer.

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