It’s warmer, but still cold, we haven’t broken freezing yet. Maybe Friday, but then it gets cold again.
Who needs the groundhog.
Last week, I went to a sculpture welding class with a metal artist. The class was a gift I’d gotten my dad for his birthday, a novel experience, I’d thought, and we were both excited to try it. I was going to write about it on Friday, but then I felt odd writing an actual post during the strike. I haven’t seen anything about how that went.
The class itself was, overall, kind of disappointing. While my dad did get to try his hand at welding, the closest I got to the torch was the instructor, when pausing his welding, shoving it at me wordlessly as though I were a failing apprentice.
We arrived a bit early, as he suggested, but we were running late already when it came time to weld my “sculpture,” three pieces of metal we could pick out and shape. I chose aluminum which is, apparently, very tricky to weld, though he didn’t tell me that when I picked it. So much so that after about an extra hour and change of trying to get the pieces together, he told me he could finish it and send it to me. I figured I could still position it how I wanted without the third attached so I just took it home as is.
He did stay a lot longer, I’ll give him that.
But he also peppered the experience with vaguely insulting–or directly insulting–comments. He said to me at one point that people probably tell me I’m smart, but I’m not, I only talk around questions and not answer them, which others mistake for intelligence.
That wasn’t really what I was looking for in a fun, unusual experience. The barbs cast an odd atmosphere as I spent the time doing the woman dance, where we try to prevent a situation from derailing completely while still weathering the blows.
And I knew, too, when, at the beginning of the class I went to the bathroom to put my hair up, as it’s very long and needed to be for safety. Of course at that point I didn’t know I wouldn’t be welding.
When I came back, he told me I looked like a different person, that my hair flattered my face shape. I stood there and looked at him quizzically, and he blustered through saying “both are nice” but I didn’t know whether he meant I looked terrible with it back or down.
Again, not what I was looking for in an afternoon class.
It has been so long since I was in the presence of that kind of needling, the backhanded complements, the insults said with a smile as though obviously you would agree.
The flex of power to make you uncomfortable because you don’t have a good way to mark boundaries; every way is problematic.
I don’t know that everyone’s experience is like this, he showed us a picture of some people who left with completed projects, smiling. Online there are others, standing behind their sculptures, a great time had by all.
And this wasn’t the post I wanted to write after, either, I wanted to tell you breathlessly about how I was a welder for an afternoon.
I just didn’t get that far.
I know others of you will get this whole feeling immediately, the way it shaped the experience, a file that left me dull rather than shiny; and some will likely wonder why I bothered with this post with all that’s going on in the world.
Which is fine, I kind of wonder too.
But I guess with all that is happening right now, when a bright spot turns out not to be, the disappointment is greater.
Anyway, that’s it for me for this Monday, have a wonderful start to your week.
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