Luck, Love and Introspection
If indeed there are two types of hunting buddy to be had, Edgar Diaz is the one you want beside you on the slow days. Edgar the glass-half-full variety. We have spent three days in West Texas trying to make an equivalence between miles walked and Scaled quail found. The math is coming out all wrong. We are long on miles and short on birds, but Edgar doesn’t seem to care, not even a little. He just eats up the rocky draws with those long strides of his and keeps smiling out from underneath his hat brim.
With the truck just a few hundred yards off and the space between us and it little more than bare ground, Edgar manages to nearly step on a single bird, an unlikely marooner in this sea of scrub desert and rock. The bird buzzes up and makes a hasty exit, startling both of us and forcing us to remember why we’re out here. Edgar touches off a shot at last, but the bird is just too far gone. It clears the skyline and bends back around a knob of exposed west Texas geology. Edgar just laughs. One lonesome bird in all this good country, on ground we already walked across, deeming it unworthy of more thorough inspection.
We could go after that bird, but doing so feels less than gentlemanly, and besides, the afternoon is getting along, and there is a cooler of Tecate in the truck. We make our way in that direction, empty the guns, and lean them against a rear tire. Edgar fishes out two beers and offers me one. We sit on the shady side of the truck to wait for our pals, who’ve been tempted off in a different direction, along with the pointers. Edgar has his sleeves rolled up, and I take a closer look at the bracelet he is wearing. It’s a piece from the Sight Line Provisions Brand of which he is the creator, a slim leather band with a metal badge riveted to it, the badge featuring a cutout silhouette of a feather. It’s a subtle piece and spare in its design, but somehow fitting in this space: the elegance of simplicity, or something along those lines.
In certain outdoor circles, these Sight Line bracelets have become a staple, a calling card for those who take pride in their affiliations. Fly fishers seem to favor them, the preferred designs featuring the likenesses of trout, or redfish, or leaping Tarpon. This makes some sense; the Sight Line Provisions brand really grew out of Edgar’s immersion in the fly-fishing space, and only in the last few years has the footprint broadened to encompass hunting, both big game and birds. The arc of the brand has followed Edgar’s own pursuits in lockstep, and his designs showcase his journey and his passions. That this current cuff depicts a feather is fitting: Edgar has, of late, been spending an increasing amount of time in the uplands, chasing birds from the Texas scrub to the New England hardwoods. Like many artists, he is tugged along by his passions, letting them effortlessly inspire both his artistic expressions and the substance of his days. He’s the joyful kind of artist, not the broody sort.
Given a cooler of beer, a good slant of shade, and the time to chat, I ask him to tell me his story. We’ve spent time together here and there, but I’ve never really asked before… how does a guy come up with an iconic piece of jewelry, get it to catch on with a notably mercurial subset of outdoors folk, and then scale its production into a sustainable business? Edgar takes a long pull of Tecate, and gives me his best just lucky I guess shrug, and then flashes that smile. “Well,” he says, “Sight Line Provisions is really just me celebrating what I love to do.” With that, he launches in.
Edgar grew up in LA County, in a family that liked to explore the outdoors. Within a few hours’ drive in any direction, they could be out of the bustle and fog, exploring the mountains, desert, or seaside. Edgar’s most formative experiences were spent camping and fishing in the high Sierras. A love of trout fishing and a love of these wild places helped shape in him an identity that would prove structural.
But, as happens, opportunities for immersion in outdoor pursuits took a second seat when college rolled around and other distractions became more pressing, a love interest among them. To impress his (then) girlfriend's (now wife’s) mother on a struggling student’s budget, Edgar made a fateful foray into the art world. He made a small, paper-cut flower scene inside a shadow box and gifted it to his future mother-in-law for her birthday. The response by all who saw the work was enough to impel him to keep after these whimsical, painted and enameled pieces, and eventually he found a place for his work in a SoCal gallery. What began as a hobby turned into a serious side hustle, enough so that when Edgar was laid off in November 2000 from his job in the non-profit sector he dedicated his 3 months’ severance to a make-or-break attempt at a career in art. As stated above, he’s a glass-half-full sort of guy, and several big commissions proved out his convictions. All in, he let his artistic interests wander into different media, and started to add embellishment and metal ornamentation to one-off vintage leather and silver bracelets and cuffs. With this variety of work in tow, Edgar hit the Art Fair circuit and found a degree of economic viability that sure looked sustainable.
What was lacking, however, was that connection to the outdoors. In an attempt to get away from some of the LA bustle, Edgar and his wife Kristi moved to Austin in 2004, and then eventually to Dripping Springs, TX, occupying a home from which nature was far more proximal. Edgar reconnected with the inner angler of his youth, and soon discovered fly fishing, which swallowed him whole. In those days on the water, particularly in his forays down to the Guadalupe River, he considered the reflection of this re-invigorated passion in his artistic muse, and how one could enhance the other. Looking at his work with vintage jewelry, he recognized that the work was not scalable. In navigating a happy medium as it were, he began to laser cut metal badges to fasten to rustic leather cuffs, and he began to lean heavily on the iconography of the outdoor pursuits, fly-fishing notably, in his metal work. The angling faithful loved it. Edgar had found his audience, and a chance 2015 encounter at an art festival in Jackson, WY sealed his fate.
It so happened that a female customer at the Jackson event bought several of Edgar’s vintage pieces and engaged him in a chat about his other work. Edgar shared the germ of his idea for a bracelet design that was scalable, affordable, and outdoor-inspired, the woman revealed that her husband was the owner of a major sporting goods chain, and that she’d arrange a meeting at their corporate offices. In anticipation of what promised to be the big break for his work, Edgar prepared an initial collection of five pieces, the basis from which the Sight Line Provisions brand and product line would be launched. Tempted by the potential for a significant uptick in sales and production, Edgar was forced to look hard at the prospect, and just as hard at the wants he had for his business. As corporate negotiations muddied the waters of what had been a clear and simple plan, Edgar realized that the grassroots nature of his business did not then balance with the demands necessary to jump in with both feet at scale. The time simply wasn’t right, the golden opportunity would go on to fall through, and Edgar would find himself at an impasse, looking inward to ask what he ultimately wanted: to maintain the status quo, and continue pounding the art festival circuit, or take a clear line of sight on the goal of growing his wristwear line into an emblem of the fly-fishing community. He chose the latter, mustered his belief in the product and its audience, and began making inroads throughout the fly-fishing retail space.
Wonderfully, the fly-fishing industry is still a fairly relational one, and the cold call or drop-in to independent, mom-and-pop fly shops proved successful. A visit to a large St. Louis shop resulted in an order for 140 units: proof of concept. From there it was all hard work, diligence, and networking. That, and the steadfast commitment to a product that said, in physical expression, “I am a fly angler, and proud to be one”. Edgar became a fixture on the fly-fishing show circuit, and his gregarious nature helped him establish a following. Sight Line took full advantage of what was then something of a social media wild west and built a major presence on Instagram. Bracelets began showing up on wrists from Alaska to Alphonse Island, and everywhere in between. More importantly, however, they stayed on wrists off the water, reminding those stuck at their desk jobs, or commuting, or at the family dinner table that their best self was to be found on the water.
With time and success, and increasing demand for his bracelets, Edgar began to view his customer base from a more philosophic perspective. He saw that his work was becoming a talisman, perhaps a physical reminder of the activities which move the heart and give flesh to an identity. An introspective sort, Edgar looked inside too, exploring what was stirring him, and where he found himself making meaning. Fishing was of course still there, but so too, increasingly, was the world of pointing dogs and quail, the hard-horned racks of whitetail, the morning thunder of strutting toms. His work grew to encompass the emblems of these pursuits as well, and he branched out into the hunting space, following the proven methodology that had worked in fishing. He also revisited his love of the more singular metal and highly ornamented cuffs and began to produce limited runs and collaborative pieces of heirloom quality.
As Edgar’s work gained broader notoriety, and as his network grew, so did the offers to travel, and to engage in the pursuits that fan the creative fire. Which is how, all these years and all these Sight Line bracelets later, Edgar finds himself here in Far West Texas, drinking beer and looking for quail that seem hell-bent on not being found.
So I ask him, having heard the story of this success, whether his dreams seem to be falling into place all around. He is thoughtful for a moment, more serious in contemplation than I have yet seen him, and he looks down at the dregs of his beer through the bottleneck.
“You know,” he says, “when you are new, or your idea is new, everyone is intrigued by you. It’s pretty dreamy. But when things start to work, you have to remind yourself not to spoil what you love. When you grow and have goals or financial metrics you want to hit, that last part can be really hard.”
He raises the bottle and tips the remains down and thinks a little more. “There is a tension between the rush to stay creative, and the business to maintain. But when you know that you are making something that reminds people of who they are, and the moments that they love, that’s pretty inspiring.”
He looks over at me, smiling, the easy affability infecting his face once again.
“And besides,” he says, laughing and gesturing towards two worn-out pointers and our pals who have just come over the rise. “Who wouldn’t want to have the day we’ve had and call it work… I’d say I’ve been a pretty lucky guy.”
That luck, I’d say, is well deserved.
First Published in Covey Rise Magazine
