The small leather shop in Houston, TX is primarily focused on the eastern-style of archery. Rob “The Hun” Morton has been creating custom leather gear for nearly 10 years, and specifically equipment related to mounted archery for the past 5 years. Having spent a great deal of time in Europe when he was younger, he has been collecting books, images and resource material from the time periods he focuses on. A graphic designer by trade originally, Rob uses modern software to re-create patterns and artwork from the various time periods and cultures and translates them into leather.
A lifelong dream came true this past summer in Vienna – an invitation by the museum’s arms and armor curator, to view and handle a few original Ottoman Turkish pieces.
After extensive note taking and sketch making, he returned and reworked his entire line of leather quivers and accessories.
Recently, his focus has been Turkish archery and accessories – the originals were typically covered with velvet or hand embroidered fabrics. He uses nearly any hide, fabric or decorative leather imaginable to create totally functional, unique pieces of art. The Hun also utilizes a number of construction techniques not seen outside Europe.
In the sport of mounted archery there are dozens of quiver and accessory makers, but outside of Turkey or Hungary there are very few making traditional equipment. “Quiver Theory” is a fairly complex set of ideas on quiver building; understanding the needs of a ground quiver or a dedicated mounted archery setup. He focuses on rebuilding the quivers, bowcases and accessories from a number of historic sources – and ultimately, building prototypes, testing out ideas, and reworking old patterns. He personally tests every design he builds, refines them and creates a version to sell.
His two latest versions are based off of examples in the Kunsthistorich Museum in Vienna.
A smaller, more compact quiver and a longer, pocket-style Ottoman example – both with matching bowcases. He recently wrote an article about the history and proper wearing of the Ottoman Bowcase, an accessory not often seen here in the states.
Traditional Eastern Archery primarily exists overseas (Turkey, Mongolia, Hungary, etc) and has competitions for mounted archery and ground archery akin to the Olympics (The World Nomad Games). The following for eastern archery in the USA is fairly small, but growing thanks to number of groups like MA3 (The Mounted Archery Association of the Americas) and USA Trad (a division of
USA Archery) they host multiple yearly events for mounted and ground archery respectively. The culmination is the “The Texas International Archery Festival” – a celebration of all things archery, hosted by his chapter The Eastern Contingent.
