We are currently living in an age of a large shortage of welders. The average age of welders in the industry is 55 and many of the extremely knowledgeable welders are either retiring or dying of old age. They are currently looking for a new generation and reaching out to women to join the field. Only around 5% of welders are female in the US. It is a very well paying career with the minimum wage around 15 dollars and the working conditions are becoming much safer and cleaner.
"Women have steady hands and patience. And those are two very important things in welding," said Becky Lorenz, a veteran professional welder and machinist. Welders need a strong ability in math, science, spatial skills, conceptualizing ideas, and precise hand eye coordination. This is due to the array of job opportunities and the skill you need to lay down good beads.
One of the most famous female welders was Rosie the Riveter who during World War II rallied women to fill a variety of labor jobs and show that they are just as able to perform the same tasks as the men. Unfortunately after the war ended, gender norms prevailed and the labor jobs went back to the men for the most part.
Beverly Peppers is a world-renowned sculptor working in cast iron, bronze, steel, stainless steel and stone. Many of her work spans over four decades and is sight specific. She uses her large metal sculptures to interact with the landscape and it is meant to function as public spaces. She is currently 94 and just a badass! She taught herself how to weld in factories surrounded by hundreds of men.
“The abstract language of form that I have chosen has become a way to explore an interior life of feeling... I wish to make an object that has powerful presence, but is at the same time inwardly turned, seeming capable of intense self-absorption.” - Beverly Peppers
I think I found my idol, Beverly Peppers. In an interview with The Telegraph in 2014 at age 91, Beverly shares that she grew up in Brooklyn surrounded by strong women. “There was nothing I ever thought would limit me because my mother and grandmother were very strong women. I didn’t know that’s not how women acted!” She considers herself one of the first artists to ever work with Cor-Ten steel, which is now well-known weathering steel.
She moved from Brooklyn to Paris, then Rome and finally settling in Umbria with her husband Curtis Bill Pepper and their two children. Curtis was a writer and recently died at 96. Since both were a part of the art scene, they had a vast circle of artist friends
Beverly is a strong believer in being a part of the manufacturing of her work throughout her whole carrier explaining, “Being involved at all stage of the fabrication of my sculptures means that I can recognize and incorporate the divine accident. If I’m not there I would not be able to recognize that extra, unexpected element.” She received the International Sculpture Center’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013.
