Whether it's for a mountainside home near a trendy resort, for a refurbished creek-side cabin, or for a full-scale cattle ranch surround by jaw-dropping scenery, the newest western decor represents an evolution in sophistication. In addition to the now seemingly ubiquitous dude ranch-style furniture, western furnishings today range from meticulous leather-wrapped armoires to petrified-stone tabletops on fantastically curved and striated juniper bases, from headboards inset with strips of Indian beadwork to rustic desks made from woods not traditionally western. While there are still plenty of mounted heads on walls in the West, lighting fixtures range from the traditional cut-metal silhouettes to three-dimensional cast-bronze pieces by fine artists. The river-rock fireplace still predominates, but there's also a place for hand-carved mantelpieces depicting a trout stream or local wildlife that represents hundreds of hours of painstaking work. This extraordinary commitment of time plus a pure passion and singular creative vision are the hallmarks of the fine furnishings of the contemporary West. Today's artisans are creating works that are fresh, beautiful, meticulously crafted, sometimes nostalgic, often humorous, and always celebratory of both the region and its traditions.