The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Mentorship and Metalwork

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

Project Humanity started as a theatre company, and grew into an organization with a larger community purpose. Priscilla Williams and Melissa Bleecker met through the Project Humanity 1:1 program, which pairs professional working artists with youth on the margins. Together they have explored and expanded their metalwork practice and look forward to bright shiny futures.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Matt Nethersole. And I'm Tiff Lam. From TVO Podcasts, this is Queries. This season, we're asking, when it comes to defending your beliefs, how far is too far? We follow one story from the boardroom to the courtroom. And seek to understand what happens when beliefs collide. Where does freedom of religion end and freedom from discrimination begin? That's this season on Queries in Good Faith,

a TVO original podcast. Follow and listen wherever you get your podcasts. In a fractured information environment, isn't it hard to tell what's real and what's not? I'm Molly Thomas, host of a new show called Big If True. We're fighting misinformation one story at a time. Subscribe on YouTube and follow us on Instagram. I think with working with metal, it's like painting, but painting in the 3D.

So I get to take whatever's in my head and kind of just like make it alive. If I was talking to somebody who wanted to get into working with metal, I would tell them, go buy some copper, go buy some metal and start learning how these metals work. Just jump right in. There's no right or wrong way, honestly. There's a usefulness in being a novice. Anyone coming to a material without a deep background ends up experimenting with it in ways

that maybe more classically trained people haven't thought of. My name is Melissa Bleeker, and we're here at the OCAD University Metal Shop. And I'm here to talk about my peer mentorship program with Priscilla at Project Humanity. My name is Priscilla, or Scylla's Fine. Today we're here to talk about my mentorship with Melissa.

Okay. Hi, I'm Dan Chapman-Smith, and I'm the executive director of Project Humanity. We developed pH one to one with Project Humanity. It's mentorship between mentee and mentor. And they basically pair you up with a mentor in your artist practice. Youth tell us what art form they're interested in per still in pursuing. And we pair them with a professional working artist in that art form. And I was like, this is really cool. I think it would be helpful for me to find somebody who works in the metal industry on a larger scale.

Project Humanity reached out to me in the studio here to facilitate this mentorship program and it's been a really great experience, yeah, working in the studio and kind of like sharing and passing on that kind of knowledge base that I've acquired through my relationships with other mentors and so to be a part of that kind of chain of information it is nice. One of the amazing things about this program is that it is highly adaptable so that artists can co-create goals and different pursuits based on the specific needs of that youth. I can't afford to go to school, so this has been great. Also the flexibility, because I am disabled, I need, sometimes I have to cancel, I need to take time. So just being able to be like, I need to take a few days or a few weeks and then come back to it has been really helpful. And then also with how I like to learn, I kind of like to jump into things. So just having Melissa as a teacher has been great, like they're just ready to go. And they're just like, yeah, whatever you want to do, we're going to do it. Sometimes there's a strong element of just being a support person and showing up once a week.

And it's really incredible to see the depth of relationships that can form in these partnerships. It's nice to be able to see through someone else's eyes when they're first encountering material. The points that really surprised me were how quickly Sola picked up many of the processes. I, you know, I was looking at their welding ability and I was a little jealous. My route to metalworking came through a studio art undergraduate program. I found myself drawn to the metal shop. It made a lot of sense to be drawn to metal given my family history with steelworking, growing up listening to stories of my grandfather working the steel mill.

I ended up taking a program at Humber for welding techniques and that led me into some time in the industry working as a metal fabricator and a welder. I do like the fact that copper does require a little more maintenance only because this way I'm able to cherish my pieces more. I'm taking time to clean them. I start sketching things out. I like to take inspiration from my African roots. This way I'm able to connect with the stories and folktales and the things that I have learned and be able to kind of piece together history and where I've come from and my background. With that being said, I also want to be intentional with how I do speak on history because of slavery and colonization history isn't always told properly.

I also like to not always follow the rules because I think that is really fun when it comes to creating. Even though there are particular steps that you must follow, I still try to break those rules. For me something I think about a lot is the apparent permanence of metal. Something we think of as like rigid, unyielding, something that doesn't change much. And with this permanence you kind of end up with its counterpart because of its value as a material. It often gets reworked, melting down, tempering. All these ways that you can renegotiate the material's form. It's very forgiving. I've been in shops before but I haven't been in like a metal shop like this with this much equipment. Like the plasma cutter, like I had no idea about that before. So there was a lot of like new things.

I started with research and kind of like self-taught myself how to make jewelry and work on a smaller scale with metal. I've been using like YouTube, just like research. I have joined a lot of Facebook groups in the metal community, which has been beyond helpful. There's so much knowledge on there. The artist can be a really incredible gateway and access point for youth to connect to other artistic opportunities and communities that are related to their own interests. These spaces are typically male-dominated, not always accommodating or inviting to other kinds of people.

That is definitely, I think, a failure of many kind of trade environments, working as a welder or applying to metal fabrication jobs in industry. I've been told, you know, this is a man's job. You can't participate in this work. Even right now, it's hard to find a space where I can work, like even just like ventilation, like somewhere I can work out of. I'm hoping that the more visibility there is and the more people who are getting into these spaces and who are different and and are kind of approaching things differently. Just having that those people there to be able to guide other people to come in. When you see someone in that role, you kind of can picture yourself in it.

I would say the biggest things that have been a barrier for me is just dealing with chronic pain and being disabled. So that's been a little frustrating. I should be producing, I should be working, I should be like, it's always that in my head. Even with just being dyslexic, like sometimes I got it and sometimes I completely don't. Measurements, words, things like that, even just like grasping information sometimes. I kind of learned to kind of cope and adapt with it. I have a digital ruler and most of my things are digital, so measuring, so that's very helpful.

Also, just taking some time for myself to reflect on what was said to me, even just making notes on that. After our sessions, I'll record stuff on my phone to kind of put that information into my own words so that I can understand it and come back to it. Kind of like an archive for myself. People who have a good sense of the material, you can see it in the way that they move. There's kind of like almost a gentleness that happens.

When you're metalworking, I think a lot of people are under the assumption that you're kind of brute force hitting things into place, but it's actually a very delicate process. And so when you can mirror people's movements and you can watch kind of like the accents that they're taking as they're moving material in a certain direction, to be able to visually respond to that and imitate it in real time. More so just focusing on gestures as opposed to language, especially in like a one-on-one setting, being able to kind of fine tune

even your slight movements that you're making when you're working with material. To have that like immediate feedback, you can move forward so much more quickly. Where I mostly like to grab inspiration from is water. There's always something happening in the grab inspiration from is water. There's always something happening in the water, especially live water. Once I finish a piece every time I'm always just like, okay I did that. I can't believe that it all worked out and

sometimes things don't work out and I have to pivot and then I end up creating something I didn't even think I was gonna create. I was interested in kind of hand forming this encasement around the outside through kind of patchwork. I really like how the pinch points here from the heat kind of buckle the surface. It feels very bodily to me. I really enjoy holding it.

It feels very bodily to me. I really enjoy holding it. And then within the center, I have these everyday objects cast in iron as I was layering the beeswax and as those were building up, these layers, it began to kind of obscure the pieces underneath it. To me, that kind of echoed this idea of memory. It's kind of amazing to see the movement of something that appears so rigid and immovable, and then seeing where my own hand can influence it.

I'm pointing to something that lasts outside of maybe a human timeframe. I'm a big dreamer. I love dreaming, and I love making things happen. I would like to see my work on runways. I would like to install some work on the street, galleries, exhibit worldwide. I want to be able to travel and bring my work with me,

collaborating with other people, meeting different communities and how other people work with Nuttall, I think would be really cool. I think that would be amazing. If I could say something to my younger self I would probably emphasize the importance of persisting and just keep with a daily practice and carve out that space when it's possible. I would tell myself do not put a limit on yourself and do not think that you can't do something. Be okay with having no experience. Do not think too hard about your equipment and do not think too hard

about what your setup is like. Just start. Be okay with the learning process. Don't get too in your head. Give yourself some grace as well because you will make mistakes and it will get frustrating, but the best thing is to just jump in. Jump in and get to know what you're working with.