When we saw last month’s edition of Texas Monthly, we knew it was a story worth sharing. Austin painter RF. Alvarez grew up in the suburbs of San Antonio — parking lots, not pastures. For years, his grandfather’s Stetson sat in his life: mangled and sweat-stained, its crown caved in, its leather band crumbling. A hat that had lived a real life. He wanted to wear it. But he didn’t feel like he could. Then something shifted. The men he thought embodied the cowboy ideal — even his grandfather — often didn’t feel that they did either. The whole thing was, in some ways, made up. And once Alvarez let go of what a cowboy hat was supposed to mean, he finally felt free to wear one. Now the hat is more than an heirloom. It’s a painting subject, a totem, a thread between who he is and who came before him. Some things are worth growing into. 📸: @jeffwilsonphoto