Clint Orms has been pursuing the cowboy arts since the age of 12, at which age he was polishing the brass belt buckles his father made. By age 13 he had learned how to tool leather, having been taught by a sculptor friend who had been a saddlemaker. When he was 16 he started making and selling silver-and-turquoise jewelry. In high school, he started his own business making western belts.
     The transition that would start him on his current path—and earn him a reputation as a silversmith and engraver of museum quality silver-and-gold belt buckles— was straightforward.
     “What started me thinking about a change in media,” Orms recalls, “was that the leather wore out. I made some people three or four belts because they changed sizes or actually wore the belt out. I might have spent ten hours working on that belt, but it didn’t mean that much to them. I started looking at belt buckles because my friends were inheriting their grandfather’s belt buckles. Belts made out of sterling silver and gold are not going to wear out, get too small, or fade. It got me thinking it would be so great if you had something you could pass on to your children.”
     But the clincher, Orms adds, was the attitude he noticed while competing in bareback bronc riding during those high-school years. “The rodeo cowboys would take such pride in their belt buckles,” he says. “They had more pride in belt buckles than they did in their automobiles. It made me want to make good belt buckles that would last a long, long time.”
     A Clint Orms piece does last a long time. Its signature is quality. Eagerly sought by collectors, the buckles are sold in 15 of the most discerning Western stores, from California to Martha’s Vineyard. They are awarded to winners of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, and this year the Professional Bull Riders Bud Light Cup World Champion received one. About 50 percent of Orms’ buckles go to clients who consult with him directly to personalize the work, perhaps with a brand, or initials, or specific imagery.
     Works include cast buckles of solid sterling silver and hand-formed hollow buckles and trophy buckles. All buckles feature the detail and engraving for which Orms is known. The most time-intensive buckles are embellished with exquisitely worked overlay. A cast sterling set of buckle, keepers, and tip is simple yet elegant, with a smooth surface, graceful curves, and a band of gold with rose details. A trophy buckle might have a raised concho, rope detail, and silver overlay. A heart-shaped buckle with a central raised heart is intricately engraved in a sinuous scroll pattern with overlaid edges. One buckle might feature a Longhorn with horns of gold, another the classic oak leaf pattern with acorns in contrasting colors, the next a bucking bronco with horseshoe details. Orms designs every buckle himself, and the names—Travis, Blanco, Galveston, Pecos—ring with the spirit of Texas.
     Orms is an intensely focused artist. Upon graduating from high school, he moved to Anaheim, Calif., to train as an engraver at Wage’s Rodeo Silver. He would work all day, then bring home more work to do at night. He kept this up for a year. “Learning how to engrave is a lengthy process,” he says simply. The only thing resembling a California lifestyle for this North Central Texas boy was the Jacuzzi in his apartment. Ironically, he got a lot of use out of it. “I stabbed my hand every day,” he says, “ and every night I had to soak my hands in the Jacuzzi.”
     Orms then moved to Reno, where he worked as an engraver and attended college. He came back to Texas and worked for three different companies, all the while wanting to start his own company. “I worked as an engraver for 16 years, making everything from saddle silver to buckles,” he says, “but I’d always wanted to have my own company and there was a need for a company like ours, I thought. The process is a little different, the materials are a little different. We use solid gold and solid silver, and we use our hands on them a lot more. Our work is very handmade.”
     A Clint Orms belt buckle might have as many as 150 pieces. “To solder that many pieces is an incredible feat in itself,” he explains, “then to engrave it and make it all fit together is an equal feat. You need the guy next to you to encourage you.” Orms employs a team of artisans (and is helped by his wife, Roxie, who is still involved but spends less time at the office now that they have two toddlers) who are “really creative and resourceful. We give everyone the opportunity to do the best work, to help the person next to them, to create magic.”
     A knack for western design runs in the Orms family. Orms’ father designed western clothing for the classic cowboy emporium, The Cow Lot, in Wichita Falls, Texas (now celebrating its 50th year in business). Orms’ grandmother also worked for the Cow Lot making and repairing clothes. She had designed and stitched all of Orms’ father’s outfits when he’d rodeoed as a teenager. “This was back when rodeo clothes had so much flair. She hand-cut all the yokes, put on all the snaps, and never repeated a pattern. She’d tear a whole suit apart if just one sleeve didn’t set right.”
     Both were “a huge inspiration,” Orms says, and undoubtedly set the standard for his steadfast refusal to take shortcuts.
     “There are a million ways to make a belt buckle,” says Orms, “but there’s only one way to get the look we get. I want to get that look and keep it, rather than doing things the easier way. If you’re going to make buckles and put all that work in, you might as well make good buckles. I’d hate to see one of my buckles 75 years from now and find that it doesn’t look good.”
     For more information on Clint Orms’ buckles, call (713) 977-2105.