The Brown Cow is named for master weaver Tina B. Woolley’s daughter’s first horse, Brown Cow. Brown Cow’s loyal spirit and hardworking, loving nature remain immortalized in The Brown Cow Saddle Blanket Company.
Tina has seven horses stabled next to her bi-level weaving studio, where all the blankets, tapestries and western shirts are meticulously hand-woven and dyed. Each piece is a testament to her love of the Southwest, horses and her artistry. Tina has enjoyed textile art since age twelve, after becoming inspired by her grandmother’s collection of Spanish Colonial pieces. After a long apprenticeship in her teens, and summers weaving New Mexico’s iconic cliffs and sprawling arroyos into colorful threads, she built her business in Santa Fe.
Tina B. Woolley draws inspiration from the support of other artists, Santa Fe’s rich landscape and her passion for horses. In addition to honing her artistic craft, she remains an avid equestrian and is happy to marry her passions with the art of saddle blanket weaving under the tribute name of The Brown Cow Company.
Brown Cow founder and master weaver
Tina B. Woolley.
Biography of Tina B. Woolley
Tina B. Woolley's abiding fascination with Textile art dates back to her early years as a child and her grandmother’s extraordinary home in northern New Mexico where one of Santa Fe’s foremost Spanish Colonial collections – of both Textile and hand-crafted furniture – was on display.
At age twelve, in this home, starting with a primitive Nambe loom, a bundle of wool and cotton, Tina embarked upon a career of art, fabric and timeless beauty drawn in large measure from the surrounding colors and starkness of New Mexico’s famed cliffs, sand-ladened arroyos, and external vistas. At age 13 she began weaving for Alice Parrott at her Santa Fe studio on Canyon Road. This apprenticeship lasted though college. During the summers, at the Santa Fe Folk Art Museum, she studied weaving with a variety of noted textile artists such as Pear Sunrise, Kay Sakemachi, Gerhardt Knodel and Michelle Lester.
Inspired by Alice Parrott to dye her own yarns with Vegetable and chemical dyes, Tina set up her own studio and dyeing kitchen on Old Santa Fe Trail. Her Custom weaving business flourished.
While attending Geogetown University with a major in Russian language and history, she also worked at the Smithsonian in the Textile division under Rita Adrosko. Her loom was never far away. After graduating, and with the encouragement of Santa Fean Nathanial Owings of Skidmore Owings and Merrill, she continued to weave custom tapestries and rugs for residences, corporations and banks. Her godmother, and grandmother’s best friend, Dorothy Skarritt Mckibbon (the "Gatekeeper of Los Alamos in 1943") were also instrumental in their support of Tina’s work.
Another very close friend of Tina’s family was Gustave Baumann. Many afternoons were spent with the Baumanns making bread and enjoying the sunny Santa Fe summer days. Ann Baumann, Gustave’s daughter, was the first to inspire her to weave Gustave’s work as tapestry. This began a fifteen year project which is now well developed with the Fine Arts Museum in Santa Fe. Tina’s Gustave Baumann tapestries are woven on a rare, custom built Jacquard hand-loom.
In her Santa Fe studio, Tina, an avid horsewoman and competitor, weaves custom tapestries, rugs and saddle blankets. Her yarns are hand-dyed and designs are exclusive to her studio. A lifetime of work in wool, silk and cotton.
Our Santa Fe studio full of projects in progress!
