Pass the Torch?

Metal Work during the Middle Ages used to be a Secret Society and you could be put to death for teaching the wrong person the trade.  Keep it mysterious and secret and you can get more money for it!  It was a Guild Trade with long apprentices and high expectations.  I have been searching for an appropriate student to take over what I have started for at least the past five years.  You would think this would be simple, yet there is so much more to it than "just welding".
I can teach anyone to  weld in about five minutes.  It is mostly about losing fear and not being afraid to get dirty.  Like any trade, practice makes perfect.  When I started welding about 26 years ago I brought to this trade 20 years experience in the Construction Industry and a lifetime "eye for art".
My competition were, perhaps, better welders, but they were trailer builders and had, maybe 2 or 3 set designs for fencing and gates.  Frankly none of them very good.  I brought my designs and creations to the local Home and Garden Show for 25 years without missing one and could get $50,000 worth of work from a single Show and I did this twice a year.   You would think I would have people standing in line to take over what I started!
I never wanted to Sell this business.  In reality, without me, it is just a welder in a shop.  I wanted to give it away, but give it away to someone who would take it.  That takes someone willing to put up with the "wax on, wax off" kind of experience!  It is not just welding and fabrication I have to teach but art appreciation and the satisfaction of a "job well done".  Passion, and the constant desire to do the next job better!  This should be true with every job, with Life, and whatever we do.  It should be incorporated into who we are.  Yet, it is almost impossible to find!   I have taught over a dozen people to weld.  I can't teach Passion!   You want to be a good welder?  Study Art!  Spend hours pouring over abstract paintings.  Reconnect synopses.   Dream.
    My latest and maybe last apprentice I found on Craigslist about a year and a half ago.  I had some cleanup and construction around my house and needed help and he offered to work for $10 per hour.
I told him I couldn't pay anyone less than $12 so we got off to a good start.  Most workers, even good ones do what they are told and minimize the task, doing nothing more, reaching no hire than expected.  Carlos always does much more.  When confronted with an unexpected situation he will research the issue and tell me what he discovered on YouTube the next morning.  To improve a job he will put in his own time.  I know lots of people who won't do this and Carlos does it every evening!
As the construction progressed and came to a close I offered to teach him to weld.  Without pay.
Carlos is a fast learner and that lasted less than a week.  He would weld on scraps, learn a bit on fabrication and study on the Internet in  the evenings. Always better the next day.
A year and  half later he can make $2,000 in a week!!!  I think I have found some one.

 Nice measurements, great fabrication, perfect fit and strong enough to tie a horse to!

I Didn't Do It!

Seventeen year old girl!  Sounds like two cuss words in a row!  Not really, I have faith in the younger generation and having two daughters of my own I realize that girls can do anything a boy can do and sometimes better!  These are her benches, a crowning of her efforts of the summer working with me.  The pleasure has been mine and the learning and skills developed all hers and she is very good!

I have taught people welding before.  It is pretty easy, I can teach you to weld in five minutes but I can't teach enthusiasm or learning to deal with the dirt.  Welding is messy, dirty and noisy.  You have to want to do it or it just doesn't happen.  Like most learning in life.

It is fun to watch her.  She totally gets lost in her creations, all in a good way.  Focused and caring, each bend and weld better than the last.  She has made a lot this summer spending four or five hours every day at my shop, churning out trellises and plant stands, benches and garden art.

Next weekend is "The Art Show" and a 10' x 20' space I was talked into at the last show I did.  I have done so many of these over the years, probably a hundred!  This one will be hers and I will have nothing there, except maybe my apprentice herself!  That could be my best art ever!

Oh, I am sure she always had it in her, I just pushed and nudged and she fell right into it.

This whole experience reminds me of when I was a teacher and that question good teachers ponder.  Do you teach the student or do you teach the subject?  I never felt the subject was that important and my job was encouragement, providing a flashlight in the dark.  

What a great experience!

Steel and Stone

I like the combination of steel and stone, both strong elements that enhance each other when found together.  This is "the first bench".  No, not my first bench, the wonderful achievement of my apprentice.  Her (yes!) first furniture piece and I believe it will become a collectors item. A graceful, five foot long, sleek bench with a back and a seat of travertine.  Wouldn't you like to have the first Picasso?  That discarded Rembrandt?  Sydnee Hale will become a "name" in the art world of steel.

This is one of mine, a small two seater with a slate seating area.  It sold at a Portland Art show a couple years ago for $495.  Like all art, it is worth more now than when purchased.  I seldom make them any more.


These are my Stone Posts, my signature pieces and what
got me into iron work in the first place. They are
concrete, reinforced with steel and covered in slate,
used as fence posts, gate posts and light posts.
Another example of Steel and Stone, this is probably
the nicest Ornamental Iron fence that I have ever built.

 And another bench with slate.  Colorful, strong and graceful.  Not made in China and didn't come in a cardboard box.

The Apprentice!

There is something about Teaching that is special, a passing of Tribal Secrets and just a validation that I may know something of value to someone else.  Too much of school is based on secrets.  The teacher will lecture from notes not shared, throw out trivial bits and pieces of information and at the end, like a fisherman with his net, will give an exam to see what was caught.

   I used to be a school teacher and once it is in the blood it forever remains.  What was important to teach then is the same today no matter the subject.  Expanded Horizons.  The world is bigger than learning the fast food business.  We grow up in whatever small corner of the world we were given and so often we are stuck there, educated there, surrounded with the comfort of what we know.  We don't worry about what is on the "other side" and curiosity is restricted from our education.

I like to teach "success".  It could be anything.  The perfect garden, the best homemade bread, standing on a walking horse, writing a great paragraph, or what I do now: welding.  I like to teach away fear.

If I could, I would like to teach people to fly!  

   Finding good students is not always easy.  I can teach someone to weld in five minutes and after a 2 hour session send them home with an acceptable garden sculpture.  For most people the  welding experience ends there and I never see them again.  It is a dirty, messy and noisy environment and then, you have to listen to me too!  I go off on "off subjects" all the time, throw in some art history, talk of travelling, adventure gathering, maybe even some Plato.  The subject is not important, brain expansion, courage, no fear and success is the goal.  I can do anything...and so can YOU!  That is what I like to teach.

   Welding is a medium, a method, just a road.  Who knows what happens?  I will bet there are good brain surgeons out there who can weld.  There is no mystery about welding.  It takes 2,000 hours to get really good at it.  Practice.  The same amount of time can get you a black belt in Karate! or an associate degree at  Jr. College.  Devotion and dedication and discipline and putting the time in is the difficult part to teach.  In welding it is pretty simple to set up achievable goals and each session will create an always better product, something you can look at, examine, criticize and improve upon.  There is nothing quite like making something from the scrap pile and knowing that you mixed those molecules and put it together!

   And it's GOOD!   The satisfaction is knowing that you made it, the grade is in the selling of it. In order to make more "stuff", to continue this process, you need to buy some more steel, more materials for this art form.  There is another art show coming up in August and I am giving most of my space over to my new apprentice!  I think she will amaze you!  Young eyes and a steady hand and a will to make each job better than the last.  It is that "will to learn" that I can't teach but maybe I can remove obstacles
in her path and help set the horizon even higher!  It doesn't get better than that.