WHEATLAND – A one-horse covered trailer tricked out and filled with treasure is the legacy of Blayn Tamlin, western artist.

Tamlin, who wears many hats and has many talents, was recently a vendor at the MB Rafter Arena and Events Center for the Christmas Bazaar and he says that he’s living the dream.

Tamlin was born in Colorado and moved to Riverton where he graduated from high school while his wife, Lisa is a Wheatland graduate whose parents own and run Prosser’s Feed and Seed. 

From mixing beard oil and doing the graphic designs on the bottles to making beauty soap, the couple has many talents and resembles 19th-century peddlers, tinkers, hawkers and costermongers.

According to LuAnn Jones who writes for NCPEDIA, she describes the early American peddlers, “Besides the wares that filled their packs or festooned their wagons, peddlers arrived with another valuable commodity: news from beyond the neighborhood. They turned backyards and front rooms into merchandise showrooms and accepted payment in trade, practices that made them especially welcomed by rural women whose trips to town or country stores often were rare.”

Working under his own corporation, “Rawhide Trail Design,” Tamlin makes exquisite jewelry and does engraving not only on the pieces he makes but can engrave just about anything. He has a turn of the century hand wood plane that is especially wondrous and features his intricate engraving skills.

Although he bills himself as a western artist and a painter, there are so many eclectic things to his wares and his image. He has a 1971 one-horse covered trailer that has been specialized to hold all of his treasures and all the lighting and tables and display cabinets that he has when he travels to shows. The trailer is complete with an awning so that during inclement weather, there is covering from the rain or from the beating sun.

He is currently working on restoring an old Cadillac that will pull the trailer from show to show. Although his wife works in the Wheatland school system as a special education secretary, his work is on following his many talents to paint and to engrave and to invent and to create the esthetic, the artistic and the eclectic. 

He said he is always coming up with new creations and eye-catching gifts that catch the passersby at the shows that they attend. They create the image of a couple just stopping and setting up their campsite. In fact, they even have a portable “campfire” which is propane driven. In the events such as the Christmas Bazaar where there was no heat, it offered a friendly place for people to gather around the fire and share some stories.

With COVID, the couple says that their schedule was affected greatly and this past year, they had only been able to attend one craft fair. As the country hopefully pulls out of the pandemic, the Tamlins will also become more active in attending shows and selling their goods.

You may order photography and other essentials by going to the Tamlin’s website, BlaynTamlin.com or rawhidetraildesign.smugmug.com. You may also contact them by calling 307-331-4351.