My dad and I are taking a "Sculptural Welding" workshop at the local community college this month.  I have been really looking forward to it for quite awhile, and we had our first class on Sunday.  (I wish I would have written then, when my observations were a little fresher, but I have had family in from out of town and have been busy.)  It was quite fun and I am really looking forward to next week when I can start on my project:  most likely a garden bench because I like a challenge.
    I will start with the first thing I did in class:  people watch.  I discovered I am not like any of the other people in this class.  The instructor is a petite young man who must be around my age but looks to be about 17.  He may possibly be the most soft-spoken person I have ever encountered in my entire life, and he seemed a bit nervous.  I felt as though he may have been a bit intimidated by both the size of the class (around 10-12 of us) and the size of a few of the guys in the class.  This man is an artist first who found his way into metal sculpture and had to learn to use some pretty powerful machines.  Several men in the class seemed to be taking this workshop as a bit of an "Introduction to Welding" as the primary focus, with making art an acceptable compromise to reach their goal.  However, I do think that the instructor is very nice and is doing a fine enough job for me-- after all, I have my dad there with me who has been a millwright for about 15 years now.  My own personal welding coach!  How cool is that?  I assume my dad is okay with the instruction as well because he knows how to weld; he wanted to try something a little out of his comfort zone with the artistic side of it.  He says he isn't creative.  He's full of it.  I'm really excited to see his project.  We have both talked many times over the past few years about how much we would love to have a metal shop of our own at our disposal to go make things in.  This is our chance to have a little taste of that.
    I got really off track there.  Sorry.  I was going to talk about people watching.  I mentioned the instructor.  I started to refer to a couple of (young thirty-something?) guys who had a little bit of trouble not talking when the instructor was-- even after they realized he was talking.  But I guess manners come in many different levels.  Maybe I'm too picky.  A few other men that I didn't quite get:  I didn't get an "artist" vibe out of them, but I think I might be a bit too narrow in my definition.  A deaf teenager and his father-- very nice.  The dad said that he had dabbled in all different types of art, but his son seemed to really gravitate toward sculpture.  So they were there to explore another medium.  Very cool.  Then a group of three forty-something and beyond women strolled in late.  They made it just in time for the part of the apparel safety segment where the instructor was talking about not having any frays or cuffs on your pant legs-- unless, of course, you like to set yourself on fire.  One of the women had to then uncuff her jeans that she had made into capris (probably to go with her goofy, multi-colored, it-says-I'm-an-artist-which-makes-me-an-artist baseball cap).  I would have forgiven her for not really realizing what she was getting herself into that in no way allowed for the tennis shoes she was wearing, but then I found out that this was the second time these three had taken the class.  I'm not perfect, but I think my old Rolling Stones t-shirt, jeans, and work boots were a bit more suited to the task at hand.  Another of the three ladies was asking us at one point if the metal suppliers would cut all of her pieces to length because she was not interested in using the chop saw or the horizontal bandsaw to cut the pieces herself.  But she wants to weld?  Okay, then...
    So.  I don't fit in.  Glad I don't feel the need to.  I've got my dad there with me, so I have someone to talk to.  I like to make things.  I was even talking to E before the class about how odd I am in my equal love of pearls, heels, and power tools.  He told me he thinks I like power tools because they are a means to making things pretty:  hanging pictures, making art and the like.  Hmmm.  That's true.  But that's not all.  I also hate not being able to do things for myself or having something done for me because it's too heavy/dirty/dangerous.  I enjoy being a powerful woman.  Power tools-- or tools of any kind, for that matter-- augment my ability to DO.  That's why I like them.  I love the sense of being strong and a bit out of the ordinary in both my desire and ability to tackle physical labor usually assigned to men by default.
    Before the workshop started, I had already had some experience in both cutting and grinding metal, so when we finally got to start trying some of the tools, I immediately had my dad show me some of the finer points of using a MIG welder.  I got the hang of it pretty quickly.  Not well enough to get certified or anything, but my welds held really well once I got the thing going.  I find it very fun.  Artistic, but with absolute black-and-white results:  Do it right and you get a good weld.  Do it wrong and the weld breaks or you get none at all.  That suits both sides of my personality.
    Looking forward to next week!!

CL