Three women at Butler Community College are working hard to dispel three myths – firstly, that women can’t be welders (obviously not), second, that welding isn’t as viable a tool as other art mediums, and thirdly, that there isn’t help out there for victims of abuse.

All untrue, and they’ve been able to make their stance abundantly clear through this one particular sculpture.

Women weld hope for those of domestic violence

Last Update: 10/21 6:20 pm
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BUTLER COUNTY, Kansas – Mary Coleman, Jessica Davis and Blake Rebholz – together they are helping dispel the notion that welding is a man’s job.

“When I first enrolled in the program I thought I was going to be the only woman,” Coleman said. “So it kind of scared me a little bit, but I was still going to go for it.”

It has been nearly eight years since any women enrolled in the program at Butler Community College – let alone three.

When El Dorado’s police chief heard about the trio, he contacted their instructor, Matthew Galbraith, to see if the ladies would consider working on a project to mark October as Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

“To let woman know that they have other options,” said Rebholz. “Like us, going into welding.”

So for the last few weeks, they’ve been working on a sculpture with a simple message that in another week or so will be permanently placed in front of the El Dorado Police Department.

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The Torch Queen. I’d love to have a nickname like that — well, wouldn’t you? Unfortunately (well, fortunately for her), this name has already been taken, and it belongs to Bonnie Wynn Ramirez of Indianapolis.

This Torch Queen lives up to her name by teaching her ongoing (and highly popular) welding classes in Indiana while still maintaining her Flameworks art studio out of Austin, Texas.

Local grandmother welds metal to dreams

Sep 14, 2009
Andrea Morehead/Eyewitness News

Indianapolis – The age-old art form of welding, before the hammering, soldering and sanding, requires the artisan to wear the proper gear. From the gloves to the goggles, this job is not for the faint of heart as the metal rain showers fall from the hands of The Torch Queen.

Bonnie Wynn Ramirez has been getting praise for her metal work since the nineties with commissioned work in the public and private sectors. The national recognition is the result of a desire for fire. It all began when she took a summer class.

“Summer in Texas, triple digits, welding, yeah. You sweat in places you didn’t know you could sweat,” Bonnie said.

The part-time course sparked a full-time interest for this grandmother. She then enrolled in the arts metal program at Austin Community College.

“It was my mid-life emancipation you know. No crisis for me. I’m like hand me a torch, I’m good,” she said.

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For more information about the Torch Queen and her ongoing and past projects, you can visit her website at www.torchqueen.com ->

The Crucible.  It’s not just a play by Arthur Miller –

The Crucible is an organization based out of Oakland, Ca that that trains people in the industrial and fine arts.

Ever wanted to learn how to weld?  Come to the Crucible.  How about blacksmithing?  Fire eating?  Enameling?  They’ve thought of everything!

My favorite is the Build Your Own Barbecue (BYOB) class.  You get to weld your own monster BBQ out of old scrap metal!

So, whilst I’m planning my move up to to Oakland (just kidding — although…), you too can get to know the Crucible with this video taken of a few of their welding instructors doing their thing at the Bay Area’s Maker Faire.

Here at Arc-Zone.com, we love to hear about people recycling their old scrap metal – saving the environment, doing some welding, and most of all – making art!  In Silver City, New Mexico, Stuart Engal of Custom Steelworks is recycling old lightposts.  With a little ingenuity, they are going to become a brand new welcome arch spanning the entrance of Silver City’s historic downtown center.

New gateway to visit visitors to downtown Silver City

By Christine Steele Sun-News Bureau Chief

Posted: 07/31/2009 01:00:00 AM MDT

A local business owner is helping to create a custom-designed archway that will span Broadway and welcome visitors to historic downtown Silver City as part of a long-awaited Silver City MainStreet program.

Tommy Johnson, of Custom Steelworks, 202 Bullard St., welds steel plates joining four recycled Silver City lamp posts... (Sun-News photo by Christine Steele)

Custom Steelworks, 202 S. Bullard St., a local metal fabrication business owned by Stuart Egnal, is fabricating the nearly 20-foot columns that will support a steel sign that will say “Downtown Silver City.”

The Downtown Gateway Arch will be installed on Broadway, on the east end of the bridge near Hudson Street. The project is estimated to cost $100,000, including in-kind   and donated services and materials.

Egnal and employee Tommy Johnson have been working for several weeks on the project, welding together four steel columns that had previously been downtown lightposts. The lightposts date back to 1949. The city had been stockpiling them to use in the project, Egnal said.

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A couple of months ago, we did a post on the Flaming Lotus Girls (FLG) here on CarmenElectrode.com.  Evidently, we aren’t the only fans of this group – Make Magazine also is.

If you’ve ever seen the show Stomp, then you’ll immediately understand what this new group ScrapArtsMusic is all about.  In the Stomp show, performers use anything from brooms to garbage cans to… themselves to make music.

ScrapArtsMusic has kicked it up a notch by using- you guessed it – scrap metal.  All of their musical instruments are made of recycled scrap metal and other materials, welded and refashioned into new and sometimes odder-looking instruments.  Take a look at this youtube video to get a glimpse of their astounding performance skills:

If you haven’t already heard, I am a huge fan of the Flaming Lotus Girls (FLG).  This year, they are set to install SOMA, at Burning Man as a 2009 Honorarium Installation. The sculpture will depict the transfer of information from one neuron to another, via their adjoining axon.  And inside each of the neurons will be a nucleus, i.e. one huge, flaming ball of fire!  Check out their test run right here:

Burning Man takes place August 31 to Spetember 7 in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.  There are a large number of metal artists that participate in Burning Man. If you go, prepare to see some amazing metal artists…

Jim Gallucci is not known as the “guru of gates” for nothing.  His work can be seen all over North Carolina, from his hometown of Greensboro and its Milennium Gate, to the capital city where he’s just been comissioned to build his biggest project yet: a $2.29 million set up in downtown Raleigh designed with the city’s nickname, “The City of Oaks”, in mind.

Towering achievements in art

SUNDAY, JULY 12, 2009

By DAWN DECWIKIEL-KANE
Staff Writer

GREENSBORO — Jim Gallucci celebrated his 58th birthday immersed in the largest project of his life.  He long has aimed for such professional heights in his metal sculpting career. If he has a wish, this is it.  ”That’s the best birthday present any sculptor can have, doing what they love,” he says.

But Gallucci barely took time out for a slice of cake.

For eight months, a Gallucci-led team has created four artful 55-foot stainless-steel light towers as the centerpiece for Raleigh’s City Plaza.

Now comes the true test: trucking the pieces to Raleigh and tackling the strenuous task of assembling them.  Next will come fabrication of 32 matching bollards, or 42-inch posts, to line the plaza’s Fayetteville Street.  The project will bring Gallucci’s south Greensboro studio its largest paycheck ever: nearly $2.29 million.

Friends predict that the towers will raise Gallucci’s public profile to new heights, perhaps even internationally.  ”It puts him in that class of the highest-profile and highest-paying commissions,” Reidsville sculptor Brad Spencer says.

“It makes him a player on a bigger stage.”

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Pamela Olin of IL sees welding as an art form and the torch as her (eyeliner) brush.  With her unique perspective, and through a series of courses this fall, Olin is going to get local women intersted in the world of welding.

New classes seek to bring women into world of welding

Published: 7/13/2009 12:02 AM
By Alissa Groeninger | Daily Herald StaffContact writer

Arlington Heights resident Pamela Olin began welding 16 years ago when she was seven months pregnant with her second child.

“I had ideas that I thought best expressed in steel,” she said.

She soon became a nationally known welding artist, and beginning this fall, Olin will teach two classes at Harper College: “Welding for Women” and “Make Your Own Garden Structure.” Both are noncredit courses that will introduce women to the concepts of welding.

Welding is a sculptural process that brings materials together, of which metal is the most commonly used.

PHOTO COURTESY ERIN BROOKS

“They can really create anything they can imagine,” Olin said. “My art projects don’t get shoved under the bed when they get home.”

Olin, a first-time instructor at Harper, approached the department director about starting the classes after doing an independent study at the Palatine community college last spring. “She came in with a unique proposal,” said Scott Cashman, Harper’s continuing education manager.

Cashman said he is excited the class will apply welding to the arts and believes it will be a nice addition to other three-dimensional art classes, like pottery.

“It’s an aspect of art that I really wanted to be able to build on,” Cashman said, adding that such classes offer Harper students a more well-rounded education.

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Out of tragedy, art is born.

It was only two years ago –  a University of Michigan Medical Center transplant team was lost when their plane crashed into Lake Michigan as they were returning to the hospital.  Douglas Hollis, a native of Ann Arbor, was selected from amongst artists across the country to build a sculpture, “Rotations”, to commemorate the team members.

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