Curtis Carter is a retired Biology teacher who lives in Poolville, Texas, an hour west of Fort Worth. He has had a lifelong interest in Native American history and material culture. The past 40 years he has concentrated his studies on the life and material culture of the Plains Indians. For at least 30 years, the scope has been narrowed to studying and replicating materials of the Cheyenne tribe. His primary focus currently has been making and using the materials that were part of the daily lives of Cheyenne people of the 1860’s and 1870’s. This includes learning how to tan animal hides the old-time way, how to make archery equipment, horse tack, and a tipi with all the furnishings. His original goal was to be able to get a sense of what the old days were like by replicating these things, and then camping with it to see how all of it actually works, or in some cases how it doesn’t work. This hands-on experience and knowledge have resulted in requests from museums, historic sites, schools, and Plains Indian conferences to lecture on how things were made and used by Cheyenne people in the mid-nineteenth century. Various museums and historic sites have commissioned work from him for hands on learning activities for their education programs.
Curtis’ interest has always been in the historic side of things, but in 2019 he and Ken Weidner teamed up to do photo references for western artists. Karen Voepel signed on to do the photography, Ken and Curtis outfit models and set up scenes. Historical accuracy is still of paramount importance, and great pains are taken to try to create scenes in which the clothing and accoutrements are as authentic to the 1860’s and 1870’s as possible.