The CWB Association brings you a weekly podcast that connects to welding professionals around the world and unrepresented communities as we continue to strive for a more diverse workforce. Join us as we celebrate Women Empowerment Month to learn about the incredible contributions of Women in the welding industry and our communities.
Ever witnessed the magic of passions combined with the arts and trades into a single career path? Helen Liene Dreifelds joins us to share her remarkable journey from visual arts and masonry to mastering the craft of Welding. Helen leveraged the Welding and Employment Skills Training program to forge a new career, blending the precision of her trade with the boundless creativity of her artistic background. Join us to hear a symphony of steel, stories, and the strength of spirit in this immersive episode.
Follow Helen:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/h__l__d/
Website: www.helenlienedreifelds.com
https://www.art.yale.edu/about/people/current-students
Thank you to our Podcast Advertisers:
Canada Welding Supply: https://canadaweldingsupply.ca/
There is no better time to be a member! The CWB Association membership is new, improved and focused on you. We offer a FREE membership with a full suite of benefits to build your career, stay informed, and support the Canadian welding industry. https://www.cwbgroup.org/association/become-a-member
The CWB Association brings you a weekly podcast that connects to welding professionals around the world and unrepresented communities as we continue to strive for a more diverse workforce. Join us as we celebrate Women Empowerment Month to learn about the incredible contributions of Women in the welding industry and our communities.
Ever witnessed the magic of passions combined with the arts and trades into a single career path? Helen Liene Dreifelds joins us to share her remarkable journey from visual arts and masonry to mastering the craft of Welding. Helen leveraged the Welding and Employment Skills Training program to forge a new career, blending the precision of her trade with the boundless creativity of her artistic background. Join us to hear a symphony of steel, stories, and the strength of spirit in this immersive episode.
Follow Helen:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/h__l__d/
Website: www.helenlienedreifelds.com
https://www.art.yale.edu/about/people/current-students
Thank you to our Podcast Advertisers:
Canada Welding Supply: https://canadaweldingsupply.ca/
There is no better time to be a member! The CWB Association membership is new, improved and focused on you. We offer a FREE membership with a full suite of benefits to build your career, stay informed, and support the Canadian welding industry. https://www.cwbgroup.org/association/become-a-member
Alright, I checked, checked, I'm good. So I'm Max Ron. Max Max Ron, shitwb Association welding podcast podcast podcast. Today we have a really cool guest welding podcast. The show is about to begin.
Speaker 1:Attention welders in Canada looking for top quality welding supplies, look no further than Canada Welding Supply. With a vast selection of premium equipment, safety gear and consumables. Cws has got you covered. They offer fast and reliable shipping across the country. And here's the best part All podcast listeners get 10% off any pair of welding gloves. Can you believe that? Use code CWB10 at checkout when placing your next order. Visit canadaweldingsupplyca now. Canada Welding Supply, your trusted welding supplier. Happy welding. Hello and welcome to another edition of the CWB Association podcast. My name is Max Ron and, as always, looking out for great talent and stories to find out there in the world of welding. Well, today I have Helen Eliené Dryfels coming to us from New Haven, connecticut, which is not where she lives, but where she's going for school right now, or lives there for school, but maybe not lives there forever, I don't know. We'll find out in this episode. But, helen, how are you doing?
Speaker 2:I'm good thanks.
Speaker 1:So let's start right off on the top. I hear that you're a pretty cool artist. Oh, thanks. Is this true or?
Speaker 2:is it your jam? The jury's still out there. Yeah, what is really cool, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, what do they say? If you're not trying to be cool, then you're cool.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, so maybe it's that.
Speaker 1:So, helen, you know we've got you on the show because your initial contact with CWB was through one of my staff, right, daniela Tirelli, who is a wonderful. Anyone who's been on the podcast knows Daniela, where, if you see this at a conference or somewhere in person, she's the lady with the what is it called? The portfolio and the papers and the clipboard behind me yelling at me, telling me what to do and where I should be. She's very crucial to the operations of the association and you took a course under her.
Speaker 2:Yes, I did. I did the WES program, so I think it was the first kind of project or pilot of it. So welding and employment skills program, I believe I can't remember what the acronym was but yeah, welding and employment skills training, I believe. Training right is the last one yeah, and it was, yeah, life changing for sure. It was, yeah, everything I wanted in a program to help me get my foot into the door, into welding.
Speaker 1:So let's start with what that program was and then we'll go backwards from there. So you know what was that program that you took and what did you learn in there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean my memory could be a little bit off, but it was 12 weeks, sort of primarily MIG welding and really just getting some certifications and learning how to weld, and it also included some like welding theory as well, which is really great, and some employment strategies, as well as just the you know, the day-to-day how to work in a shop and what's sort of involved, as you know, making really good welds.
Speaker 1:And when you enrolled in this program I guess why, you know what was it that attracted you? Were you up someone that was thinking about welding as a career, or were you kind of like hobbyist, or just, you know, checking out new things to learn?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess I've had lots of different sort of, I guess, careers or different ways that I have made money over my life, but at that time I had just finished.
Speaker 2:I was a brick-tenter, so working in custom tinting and masonry, restoration work, that kind of thing, but seasonal, and I had also just finished this, like women, transitioning to trades and employment program through George Brown.
Speaker 2:So that was really the sort of initial where I sort of said, okay, welding is the thing I want to do. We had different people come through either millwright or tool and dye, but I was really excited about this idea of welding and so when the West program came through, that kind of employment program and I was in between the jobs, it was perfect, it was served. I had served at the time as well, which helped me. I had decision to be able to do that and a lot of people helped me out to be able to attend and just in terms of like the commute coming from downtown Toronto to Milton and I was also learning to drive at the time lots of different things. Yeah, it was a transition period due to losing all my employment and I was like I'd always thought about the trades and I felt like I needed that sort of financial job.
Speaker 1:Stability yeah.
Speaker 2:And I was like this is it yeah.
Speaker 1:So when you say you've thought about the trades, you were in brickwork, masonry as a brick-tenter, so you were already kind of looking at that avenue in general as a way to work. Had you been involved in the trades for a long period of time already, had you tried a few things, or was this kind of like the initial experimentation into the trades?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think, as a visual artist, you're always sort of working with your hands, particularly in sculpture, and I also, yeah, I think, being an install assistant helping people with their exhibitions like lifting, moving, putting things together, and figuring out how things gotta go.
Speaker 2:yeah, Up with solutions for a random thing. You need the thing that fits with the thing to make the thing you know as basic as that sounds, you know. So I think that's always been in the background and yeah, I think you know both parents working within like sort of the performing arts as well as well, multiple different jobs, but yeah, particularly like my dad being like a carpenter for a long time and then also having his own kind of contracting business.
Speaker 1:It's always been around, so that was always something around, I guess yeah, okay, so that's a good spot because we can go back in time. So now let's go back in time to where your roots are from. All right, so where were you born? You know what part of the country were you from and you know, tell us about the inception of Alan's life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'm born in Toronto, toronto, ontario, canada, yeah, on River Street, so in the area of Toronto called Regent Park, yeah, and then later on moved to Jaliette, like in Quebec, and then also Fredericksburg, virginia, and then back to Toronto and then at 17, I moved to Montreal and then moved a bunch of other places. But yeah, that's in a nutshell, but yeah mostly like yeah, English and. French speaking Canada. Okay, and what did your?
Speaker 1:parents do? You said your dad was kind of in construction, but both your parents were in the performing arts, so what did they do?
Speaker 2:So my mom, is a translator, essentially so kind of part of the team that's developed cert titles, so essentially subtitles, but for performing arts. And then my dad has done lots of different things but including like stage manager within the performing arts and then having his own business as like a sort of handyman contracting, so he probably built a lot of sets. Yes, there's been a lot of sets and a lot of touring sets, things that need to come up and come down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my daughter's in the performing arts. She's a musician, a flute player professional, and she teaches music now. And as a construction dad, I built a lot of sets. I was just up in Grand Prairie for her first large school performance and she's like dad, this is like one of the first times you're not going to be around to help build a set. And I was like I'm coming, yeah, road trip, yeah, yeah, so supportive, that's great.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, the arts is there's lots of work. I don't know where this concept came from so many years ago. I feel like almost society created a narrative that artists need to be broke, artists need to be poor and struggle, and that they should undervalued, and that they should undervalue themselves and not charge. And I feel like this the newer generations are more down with. Like, hey, art is a vocation, art is a career, you can do it every day and you should be able to make a living off of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that's the hope, you know. But I mean I think that for a variety of reasons, depending on what your work looks like and the sort of, you know, systems that you're working within, the granting system is wonderful that we have in Canada, but at a certain point that's not always like a secure source of income. And if you don't make necessarily commercial work, the artist's lobby like Carfac only offers so much for an artist fee. You know there's all sorts of. So you know trying to like, you know coming up to like. You know being 35 and thinking like, okay, how do I create like long-term financial stability is, you know that's where the trades really came in. I was like very excited and that's where I decided to become an apprentice. Right now I'm back in school, but you know I don't see the two as like.
Speaker 1:Consciously, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I see them actually as, like you know, two things living together, you know, and both benefiting each other. You know, the technical thinking is also really great with the abstract thinking, and I think the two go hand in hand, yeah, and I think, yeah, both require a sense of both invention, but also, you know, there's gravity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and understanding form and understanding pull and the materials, because no matter what art you're in, you have a material that you need to understand to work with it, right.
Speaker 2:Lee and that's something I think I learned a lot through working in metal fabrication was thinking it's just like watching how different people approach the material and they're understanding through experience. You know, it's like you really learn something. Not to romanticize too much.
Speaker 1:No, romanticize away Like I mean, that's a reality to it. People often don't understand welders and how much we do romanticize our trade we talk about. You know how much we love welding and how awesome it is. You don't see too many people do that in their jobs. You don't run into a lot of lawyers that brag about lawyering or whatever the job is, but welders, we tend to go out there and be like, yeah, we did that thing and I think there is a sense of artistry to it, of form, you know, of something being visually satisfying. Even in the construction of even the most basic structures to a welder become very visually satisfying to be like that is built perfectly square. That makes me feel good, even though it's just a mathematical thing, that this measures the same in both directions.
Speaker 2:I feel good about that you know, yeah well, it's like a huge accomplishment to get to the point that things are not distorted or that things are working to code, but also a sense of like you're working on something that's larger than yourself. You know it's like it's a team always, even if you might be working individually at your bench or your spot like, in the end it's something that's larger than you. And to participate in the built environment I think has is. You know that's quite a powerful position and not something to be thinking lightly about, and you know there's potential for changing the built environment as well. Yeah, I mean, that's like on a maybe not on a day to day, as that's maybe larger scale shifts, but yeah, Now, in terms of you know the connection between metal and art.
Speaker 1:it's popular. It's gotten very popular, or I would say, over the last decade. There's, there's shows on TV, there's things that happen. There's a kind of a glamorization of the industry, which I'm all for. I'm all for, I think this is good, gets it in front of people. Now for yourself as an artist, you know you. I feel like you've probably been an artist your whole life. This has been a conscious career choice for you. You know at what point were you like steel would be a good medium to work in? Or was it never, like you said, like they're meeting now? But when you took the West program, were you secretly thinking I can use this for art as well? Or were you like no, this is just to get a job and that stability?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, there's always a little bit of like, ooh, new material Not going to lie, you know. And yes, to respond to, like you know, metals having a hot moment right now, but yeah, but I guess I had. I mean, I did a. I got a grant through the Toronto Arts Council to learn some welding through a continuing education program because I was looking for a way to create armatures or relate my textile work into like a more three-dimensional space. So it was really out of that sort of kind of practical problem solving and I was also starting to weave with stainless steel wire as well, so kind of coming up to the edges of what weaving or metal or what thread or cloth is perceived as.
Speaker 2:So it was really, I guess, through like a sort of practical approach, like, oh, metal will be the way that I can, you know convey that yeah convey that and also has like a interesting contrast to textiles, which, you know, wood would not be the right material, I think you know, maybe stone and textile, but yeah, the metal seemed like the way to really flip that perceived invisibility of textiles with something that is so ubiquitous in our environment, just like textiles, but has in some senses more presence, I guess.
Speaker 1:Because it is everywhere around us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is everywhere around us and there's something really interesting about the recyclability of it. But also patients. You know it's not as if steel is only wonderful. You know there's a lot of questions around, like the built environment and how that is created, but I guess that lined up with my ideas around textiles as like cosmologies or ways of thinking about the world. So that was my initial contact with welding and then I really wanted to be a bricklayer. I just because it looked very much like weaving you know like these yeah, an interest in like sort of this printing.
Speaker 2:That is like not going to ruin the surface. It's sort of like in connection to the material rather than placing something on top of. So that sort of restoration aspect was interesting to me.
Speaker 1:And then material brick, though it's not. It's not very flexible, right.
Speaker 2:It's not flexible and I also this seasonality again, you know, and having, you know, worked and I haven't always been an artist. Yeah, that's sort of something. Later on, like my initial interests, were more within, like sort of social work or community work.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I started with and then slowly it turned into art.
Speaker 1:So tell me about that. How did you fall into art? Because I've had a lot of people on the show who artists and and they're like the. You know, in my experience you're that kid you've seen grade five who can already draw better than everyone in the school and it's like, okay, well, yeah, you're going to be an artist, unless something in their home life pushes them away from art, which does happen, you know, to let Rome free as a spirit, you can't really put an artist down like they have this, this need to express themselves, which which I love and appreciate, since I'm not very artistic. But you said you kind of got into it later. So how did that process? Or? Or was it like you uncovered a seed that was dormant, or or how do you feel about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess in my mind, everyone has a need to create or some sort of form of expression, and that exists within anybody. Like it's sort of what is the thing that drives you? Everyone has something and perhaps it doesn't show up in like the ways that we understand. Is like visual art or performing art or like that sort of like category, yeah, but I think there's yeah like I don't know how to draw like in the way that you know here's an apple and make it look like an apple, but I think that's like there's like an idea that like art is like kind of stuck sometimes in this, like one way of understanding like oh, we must be really great at realism, or that there is some sort of or it's like abstract, or it's like the you know excruciating psyche or all these sort of.
Speaker 1:You have to fall underneath a label.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean tropes, and that happens with the trades too. There's like tropes and stereotypes that I think any yeah, vocation or career or passion has and it's sort of you know, that really flattens the actual identity and person's relationship to something. So, yeah, I guess I don't think I really answered your question.
Speaker 1:No, but you do bring up a point. You know, like when you talk about flattening the identity of any work or spectrum or field, I see that on both ends. You know, like I've been in the game long enough to see that sometimes you have to flatten it for people to kind of see it, you know, because it's maybe too complex to see initially. So you got to create kind of the 2D, like hey, just take a look at this, if it attracts you and if it does, then we'll kind of start, you know, pulling the layers apart, right. So my question was initially like how did you get into the art? You know, like you went into social, you said you want to do like the social human services careers you know and you know which are noble and needed within themselves through an all you know, a halo or altruistic lens. How did, how did art form out of that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was working with youth and I felt like a lot of you, so I was working with our like triling world, particularly in the context of my fee all. So I just felt that, in order, like the life skills programming wasn't working. Like in a lot of social services there's a lot of life skills programming and just doesn't. It doesn't seem to. I was just frustrated with the social service field. Well, I thought you know what's something that will connect instantly to multiple different cultures or people, or age ranges, demographics, and I was thinking, well, textiles. And when you're doing activities together, then there's more of a buy in, like we can talk about addictions, we can talk about sort of those things that are close to the heart and might be difficult to talk about in other settings. It's too much of a sort of social service agency kind of relationship. It's not necessarily like the place where trust can be built always as easily. I mean, these are generalizations, but so textiles plus language.
Speaker 2:So then I went to a CISEP program for in a French CISEP and I sort of thought, oh, textiles, I didn't really know what I was getting into and it was like a very technical, like woven, constructed textile, like precision and sort of, yeah, very technical. It was a technical degree and I thought I was just going to take like one semester in order to then be able to continue social services, but then I realized that maybe I was the youth that I was looking to help. You know, sort of switching that perception and also I think social services are valuable, but there's a lot of. I was looking for other ways to make change, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the social services are something that are well obviously very much needed, and even a marker of a successful society is to have as long a strong social network. But at the end of the day, the mechanisms are always under some type of scrutiny or funding or you know ulterior benchmark. That makes it really hard to do the job. Well, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, and I think it's something within many different fields, there are sort of ways that you need to navigate to figure out how to be able to reach the excellence or the change that you're looking for. Yeah, so, so the swing into there.
Speaker 1:You're like okay, I'm going into art Now. Are you the type of person that's going to be? I'm all in, I am now going to devote my life to this, this branch of that I'm pursuing. Or was it a soft transition of like I'm going to keep doing this and try to learn this on the side of my desk, type of thing?
Speaker 2:Oh, I would say that it's sort of there can be a little bit of intensity when I like something or I'm interested in something that I will really dive into it. And the program was a three year and quite intensive and I've always had multiple jobs at the same time as well. It's sort of I always felt like I could still do either volunteering or working or doing contract jobs or get you know so it's all kind of like you can still scavenge a lifestyle.
Speaker 2:You know, always looking for work, so I want to learn something, yeah. So I think I guess the big change was that I got into this residency that I thought was going to be just one year of subsidized studio space but I didn't realize again. I guess I'm, you know, not always realizing the full extent of like when I applied to something and realize it was going to be three years. It ended up being a three year program, which was great and that really I think was a big moving point from the kind of solidifying, I guess, gaining confidence in what I was interested in and like being part of a larger community and still teaching. I was doing a lot of teaching and contract work and working with with you, but also I worked with senior. I was still doing both. So somehow what's?
Speaker 1:what's the field you would teach in, like what was your specialty, that people would reach out to you for learning?
Speaker 2:I was bilingual, you know, or I'm trilingual, y en poquito español también. Yo necesito.
Speaker 1:Bueno, si quieres hablar en español, yo soy de Chile, ¿vuedo hablar en español.
Speaker 2:Sí yo sé, yeah, I yeah, french, english, latvian, but a lot of. In Toronto there was a lot of need for bilingual part-time or contract-based teaching. So I worked, yeah, looking at sort of yeah, I worked within museum settings, but also technology settings and also just visual arts, all sorts of settings. So I guess people reached out to me due to the bilingualism and also the background in group facilitation. So that really probably was how I was able to get those jobs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and now you're going through the SART program. And this is you said what three years.
Speaker 2:So yeah, the MFA program here is two years. Two years, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:So you enroll into the MFA program. And what was usually? You have to pick your medium or pick what you're going to specialize into. What did you go into? What was your goal?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, at Yale it's like a little bit different than other schools where it might be more interdisciplinary, although it might be interdisciplinary in the idea. But I want to do sculpture because I'm concerned with space, like how space is created in sort of a very quick nutshell. But I knew that was going to be sculpture and I see textiles as sculpture. They're three-dimensional, they also are painting and sculpture. So yeah, that was sort of the reasoning.
Speaker 1:Was it challenging for you to get into this new space, new crowd, new thinkers? Was it a challenge or did you feel like this was meant to be your home?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think with any, having had so many transitions and working with different people and then different sort of work settings or school settings, like from French to English to, and a lot of different experiences. So this is just another one. It's definitely a pinch me moment like whoa, I'm at this school, that I never thought of. Yeah, you know, there's always a moment where you remember someone saying, oh, you're not university material or you know, or like sort of just different struggles one has had over their life span, and then realizing you're here and that's always like you know, it's exciting. It's exciting to be in a space, it's a luxury to be pursuing knowledge and within the setting and with peers who are just as passionate about their work and wanting to build. You know that's the, you know it's yeah.
Speaker 3:It's the passion.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's rigorous. You know, I'm used to working many jobs, but I would say that this is also rigorous in a different way.
Speaker 1:It doesn't give you a lot of time to be doing lots of part-time outside of school.
Speaker 2:No, I'd say this is a very, very full, full time job school program. Every day is quite busy and there's lots of different opportunities or talks or things to check out or people coming to visit in your studio to talk about your work presentation. There's lots to do, but I am working as a work study as well, so I'm working in the fabrication shop, so that's also interesting. But another layer of like yeah, it's just different than like a shop.
Speaker 1:So you're coming into, like I mean, up until this point your path has given you a lot of skills, right, you've pulled in a lot of skills for a lot of different areas and you know the West program being in there in terms of welding. So, like before this program, you know, but after West, let's look at that window. You know, like you do enroll into this welding program, it's fairly in-depth. You know you come up with some actual welding certificates and qualifications and you're kind of ready to work. So at the end of the West program, you know what happened. Did you get out and get a job? Did you become an apprentice? Walk us through that part.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's thanks to Danny and Donna like I would have never had the courage to, you know, think that I could work in in this welding, you know. And yeah, I was sort of I had like a whole I'm sort of one of those like Excel sheet, you know like looked at all the places I wanted to work at and how much the commute time is and like what potential. Like I wanted to work in a smaller shop because I wanted to be able to do the range of activities and hopefully a place that would allow me to grow and be flexible with something a little bit more than the untraditional. But as I still wanted to continue my art practice but still be dedicated to welding or metal fab, so there was a place I really wanted to work for that is does also art fabrication, but I was a little bit too green for them.
Speaker 2:And then they said did another spot called discrete, discrete, and that was like life changing, just like West. It was like what a like. That was a beautiful transition from one to the other. It was around the corner. From where it was living at the time, I could walk or bike to work, which is not very common within the trades. It was with a group of guys that were just so supportive. I have, like it, really shifted a lot of some things that were kind of difficult for me in the past, having mostly worked with like queer or fam identified folks and it was just yeah.
Speaker 1:Just a fear of the bias you were expecting, you know.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I guess it was just, you know, working in custom tinting, like masonry. Like you know, it's a different environment here on these sites and it was just a transition, you know, then, and it was just really nice to be in metal fab with this great like group of people who are also artists in their own right they also do, you know, they have an artistic background too, and they're just passionate about invention but also materials and making things, and that was really. That was exciting. I felt like I hit, like you know the entire.
Speaker 3:Thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I hit the jackpot and it was like I don't know, it was so rewarding. Yeah, really rewarding.
Speaker 1:And how long did you work there? Did you stay there? Are you still there?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I'm now in school, so it was coming to the turning. I applied to be an apprentice through discreet and discreet with my boss, tom. He had to get registered. I would tough to say that, you know. I really hope that the apprenticeship program and the Ontario College of Trades can sort of solidify themselves in this transitional period and become yeah, the process is not always the. It's a lot of paperwork and I hope that that process becomes more efficient in the future.
Speaker 2:And for those reasons, I sort of there is many reasons, but I'm still an apprentice with Tom and if I come back to trauma then that would be that I would like to continue, or at another place you know it depends or perhaps here in the US, but at the moment school it was sort of one of those moments where it's like either you're going or you know, and I just couldn't give up my art practice completely and hopefully I see in the future the two being even more together. But for right now I have to put the metal on pause. But I'm still working with metal and, yeah, I'm excited to hopefully I can get another part-time job in the summer. So we'll see.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, let's take a break now for our advertisers and supporters and when we come back, I want to talk to you about this. You know you stumbled on apprenticeship there. I could tell it was a struggle. And I want to talk to you about that struggle because I've worked with apprenticeship across Canada and I know very much what you're talking about and I think a lot of people probably would like to know that they're not alone in some of these things. Right? So we're going to be right back here after these commercials here with Helen and we're going to have a great conversation. So don't go anywhere.
Speaker 3:The CWB Association is new and improved, and focused on you. We offer a free membership with lots of benefits to anyone interested in joining an association that is passionate about welding. We are committed to educating, informing and connecting our workforce. Gain access to your free digital publication of the weld magazine, free online training conferences and lots of giveaways. Reach out to your local CWB Association chapter today to connect with other welding professionals and share welding as a trade in your community. Build your career, stay informed and support the Canadian welding industry. Join today and learn more at CWBassociationorg.
Speaker 1:Hi and welcome back here to the CWB Association podcast. My name is Max and, as you know, we've been having a great conversation here with Heaven.
Speaker 2:Hell.
Speaker 1:Liana Dryfels. Liana Liana. Liana yep Liana, all right, all right. What nationality is Liana?
Speaker 2:Latvian.
Speaker 1:Are you from Latvia?
Speaker 2:No, but my heritage on my mother's side and I spoke Latvian growing up and very much part of that sort of Latvian diaspora.
Speaker 1:Cool, all right. So that's interesting to me as an immigrant. I love hearing immigration stories.
Speaker 2:Of course. Yeah, I mean, I think there are a lot of yeah, I think there's a lot of importance in that story as well. You know, and I think that's actually like a lot of again, when we're talking about flattening, sometimes those are conversations that don't come out, but they are really much part of how we feel how we feel Like this fabric yeah, yeah, totally yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:When we're talking about, oh yeah, apprenticeship, all right. So when we're talking about, you know, getting signed up for apprenticeship, especially in Ontario, and so the more east you go, the harder it gets. The more west you go, the easier it gets, generally speaking for apprenticeship. Now in.
Speaker 1:Ontario. We've heard a lot at multiple levels, whether it be colleges, standard schools, whatever it is about, kind of the hodgepodge system of apprenticeship that exists in Ontario where certain places have it, certain places will follow. So it's kind of your on your own type of system. That's very much a generalization, but you know, for yourself. What was your experience like coming out of the West program, getting a job and then trying to figure out how to pursue this career?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there's a lot of the information is not streamlined and I don't believe the intentions. I believe are to encourage folks to come into the trades. We've heard it for a long time that you know there is going to be a gap. Many people are highly skilled, however they are, you know looking towards the gap.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then folks are coming in but are green and there's no sort of like mentorship or like gap fill and there's no sort of mid-skill let's say there's either new or highly skilled.
Speaker 2:So there's like a gap and in terms of like the sort of onboarding, it is not simple when there's an organization that is sort of changing and there are websites and just sort of like all the like kind of updating that was happening during the pandemic, mixed with the rush to try to create more jobs and employment and the differentiation between the like sectors that are needing employment. But then the actual jobs and what actually the long-term financial, physical, et cetera. Like you know, I was really interested in working with the unions but I was realizing that you know that would necessarily be the best fit in terms of my specific interests and also thinking through sort of the like location. You know, yeah, as somebody who wasn't with a car at the time and it needed to be somewhat accessible through transit or bike, you know that a lot of that is available. I know that's very city-centric and that's not a really sweet.
Speaker 1:It's a struggle and a lot of people live in urban centers and most welding shops are not in urban centers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, yeah, I really wanted to do the full-time. You know where you can go to school full-time and then you go do that and then you go back to your employer, but there's not a lot of options for that. There was mostly primarily part-time. I made my choices of the places I called the universities, like Conestoga, like all these different places I was really excited about. Nobody knew when the course would start. It's like there was just no communication that seemed to be happening between the places offering the education and then the ministry and that mixed in with you know the shop has to run.
Speaker 2:You know we can't spend all day calling everyone you know, and it took some time to get the place where I was working to be registered with the ministry. So, and I'm so grateful to my boss and my coworkers and he did that you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's huge, like I'm so honored that that was something. You know, there's a lot of trust put into that and I couldn't have done it without you know. But I was supposed to be on the list for the next session but it was still uncertain and I applied to school as well and, you know, never thought I would get in and I did. And so, you know, since that came first, I decided to leave to come to school because, at the end of the day, all of these moves are for, you know, long-term job stability and financial security. You know a lot of the reasons why I came to the West program, and the women in trades is like I was highly underemployed for most of my working career thus far with a lot of different, like low-wage contract, part-time hours, cut, you know, sure, perhaps be due to, like, desiring flexibility within an art practice, but also at the.
Speaker 2:You know one could do both, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're not mutually exclusive, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the like. Traditional model is like sort of a full-time Monday to Friday, nine to five is not doesn't work for many people and I think that there is. You know, we see the changes that are happening in workplaces and I think a lot of the work can still happen with varying schedules or varying types of yeah. Ships, cert accommodations yeah, yeah, look, you're working remotely, so it's like you know, or I'm assuming, but you know like there's also a I'm actually on a cruise ship right now as a fake background, just as if.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, and I mean there's like positives and negatives to all these different sort of but I think that's sort of a question for the trades is how to innovate within, like the idea of how work can be done and it can be. I think, you know, the brain is plastic. Both mindset is possible and I'm really excited for that for the trades, you know, I think there's so much possibility.
Speaker 1:It's just a question of yeah, yeah, there you know, and I think that there's space for everything. So I think, what happens in the industry or in conversations or even in human beings generally is that it's either it's always like an all or nothing idea.
Speaker 1:It's always like I'm all the way there or I'm all the way not there. And reality, life is not like that. It's not, you know, just from one extreme to the other. So you have an industry that has been, you know, evolved from the industrial revolution to be almost like a punitive task of creating widgets, and you start at some ungodly morning hour, at six in the morning, because it costs less to heat or whatever industrial, you know, systems are worth to create these work hours. And now we've, you know, evolved our societies around these work hours. Now, on the other end, there's this idea that, well, these are resources and they're almost like luxury resources or infrastructure resources that we're creating, that they're not necessarily dependent on that time structure. They can be flexibility, there can be a plasticity to it. There can be, you know, a change in the narrative of how work is done.
Speaker 1:Now it doesn't mean you have to abandon the old system, because I do understand the need for, say, a 24 hour, three shift type of employment where timing it's just a timing thing. There's only, you know, there's three shifts of eight hours each. That's a 24 hours day, and that's to mine, the coal out of the ground because that is a 24 hour job. Yeah, fine, but there also is gonna be new industries that are gonna be flexible and it's up to you, as the consumer, as a worker, to be like this is what I wanna do, or this is what I wanna do. You know, like what is it that I need to fulfill myself? Because some people love the structure of a regulated, regimented time slot right and some people don't right.
Speaker 2:Totally. Yeah, I don't think they're conflictual. Like I think many options are possible and work will be done and I'm excited for you know, thinking through how the trades could change and, like you know, one of my coworkers went to trade school in Alberta and just thinking through their curriculum is just a lot more thorough and I wish that for, not that the CWB program wasn't thorough, more just in the central.
Speaker 1:That's a short program, though it's not like an actual yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it was so rich in terms of its information in a short period of time and I hope for more of that sort of thing could happen in Ontario, or like a different system that you know, really everybody has to do all the parts. Like you know, everybody has to weld or do everything, and if they wish to become an engineer they could, but everyone has to start from understanding the how to sweep the floor all the way up to understanding the structural integrity of a building. You know, I just really think that thoroughness rather than jumping, or you know, yeah.
Speaker 1:And that is something that we have more in the West. You know, I'm in Saskatchewan. You look at Alberta's apprenticeship model, saskatchewan's apprenticeship model. We very much have that tiered kind of approach of like Everyone's gonna learn the same stuff, so that we're all on the same page and we can all talk to each other. And then, once you get to this certain level, you get your red seal and then, and then you're not done. That's like your red seal is kind of like, just like now you're allowed to come in.
Speaker 1:It's like being a doctor I always say like you go to med school, you don't get to touch a patient while you're in med school. You don't get to touch a patient until you've already gone to get your job at the hospital. And even when you get your job at the hospital, you're not allowed to touch a patient until you do two years of a of what's it called Like an internship or no, it's not, but like it's. It's like the beginning of your journey school, not the end of it. And it's the same with welding. Like you go to school, you do your three levels, you get your journey person, you're just starting, you just scratch the surface, like now, what's next? Metal, fab, welding, engineering, technologists, engineering, you know like, or are you happy there? Because there's there's something to be said about, you know, loving your job and just staying where you are. That's totally dope, too, right.
Speaker 2:For sure. Yeah, and maybe that's something that's exciting about Something like welding or metal fabrication is that there's always some other aspect to learn and it is contextual, like working with stainless, very different than working with aluminum, working with steel, yeah, I just think that you know there's a lot of potential.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so now that you're in this program for art, what, what? How far along are you in it right now?
Speaker 2:So I'm just almost finishing up my first year, so I'm like almost pretty much halfway through, I guess.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you're about halfway through. You're probably not really seeing the glow of the end on the horizon yet, probably still too buried in the sand for that, but at some point you're gonna start seeing that finish line. Yes, when that comes as a as a you know, an art major.
Speaker 1:You you'll have some tough choices. You know I watched my daughter go through these tough choices and be like you know. Can I pull this off? Is there gonna be a job, Is there a career in this, or is this something that I devoted and that I'm gonna have to do off the side of the desk For my other real job? In quotation marks right.
Speaker 2:How do?
Speaker 1:you see your Vision of of you coming out of this program with your art, your welding background. Is there a desire to go back to welding and finish off that, that journey person, so you can at least have that in your pocket and be done with it? Or do you want to just jump into the art world and see how far that goes while you're still hot on that track?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess. Yeah, I don't really think of like you know, like Things as like day job or one negatively influencing the other. I think that there's. I Guess I'm really interested in creating way of making money and but like that doesn't Making money and being able to have financial stability but also having continuing like my purpose in things. So, whatever format that takes, yeah, I, of course you know teaching has been a thorough line throughout, so teaching is always interesting.
Speaker 2:I had thought at one point to create like a Sort of like a women and women identified sort of installation, art, installation Company as one option. And definitely, yeah, at one point I was thinking I would continue my apprenticeship, perhaps in the States or come back to Canada and finish that. But I think at this point, in a program that is Really like a professionalization program and is quite rigorous, I, you know my first goal for sure is, you know, my Artistic career, but I don't think that is that doesn't include welding and I don't think that doesn't exclude, like a journey person is just finding how to make those two things align well, and you're young like these things are gonna Weave out.
Speaker 1:However, they weave, right so?
Speaker 2:yeah, I'm young, but I'm also old like I'm 36 now. Yeah, but you know I've um, you know I'm looking forward to, yeah, sort of Having that more stability.
Speaker 1:Well, stability is a very interesting term because it's very, it's very much a phenomenon, a personal phenomenon, right like you know you talk to what I talked to students and young women, especially when I talked to people from you know kind of the disenfranchised groups or the, the fringe groups of Society. I don't like using the term money. I don't like using the term dollars. I like to using the terms like stability, because financial stability for me might be very different than financial stability for you and Vice versa, you know financial stability could be a hundred bucks a week, living on your parents coach, and that's fine.
Speaker 1:If that's what is stable for you and you feel mentally well like that, that's fantastic. But but if you're rentals, you know financial stability especially if you have a family, you know if you're a young parent, then you have your financial stability Requires more. So then what can you do with that?
Speaker 1:one of the things I always say to young parents I was a young parent too is that Welding offers benefits and that's something people don't talk about very much. It's a you know, if you're a young parent, that paycheck matters less than that benefits package, because not worrying about your kids is medicine or doctor's visits or dentists or any of that stuff is a huge weight Off your back. Or if your kid struggles in school, they need private speech pathology. Or or you know autism help, or you know Neurodivergent in some way.
Speaker 1:Having an insurance program is huge because those things are not cheap and they're not covered by the government, right? So Now for an artist. Like I watched my daughter as a musician, her, her idea of financial stability or a stability was having a gig or having a place for her to be able to express herself, because that gave her the stability that she felt as an artist, that she needed right now.
Speaker 1:You said you're old, at 36 or almost 37. You said, yes, that you know what is stability look like. For you, does stability look like buying a house, which is like an almost impossible measure now? Or does it? Look like. You know having installations that you're constantly in Demand for your work, for the art. You know what does that look like in your vision?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's taken. It's one of the first times in my life that I don't have five jobs while I'm here at school, and I am so grateful for this opportunity to be in school to do that. So I think it's a Tricky one for me to know what that looks like, you know. I guess one idea would be to have one job or two jobs only.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're just not always feeling like it's at the edge you know, or wondering you know.
Speaker 2:No, perhaps it's like moving past entry level positions. You know that would be a sense, or having a sense of like, confidence in one skills. You know, I think that's maybe one of the like. It's maybe more of a sense of like. You know, I think that's maybe one of the like.
Speaker 1:It's maybe more of a mental barrier rather than a confidence is a big one, because Statistics science has shown that people are more willing to purchase someone, something from someone who exists confidence and someone who does not. Regardless of the product which is right yeah crazy thing, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there's lots for me to learn still within the trades, to have that confidence that there will always be a job there for me. But I do, I am, I do feel like that transition from Sort of the contracts, social work or social service or like I worked in hospitality for a long time like or gig jobs, you know, it's just been really nice to know that something that I do with my you know skills could not that those work jobs are not Unskilled because I think they're highly skilled, but that it would be more financially valuable, is like been a real shift to mentality. But I do wonder, yeah, I do wonder, as we go into another recession and I do wonder if, like what that stability would look like. But I am hopeful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm always full of hope. I'm the eternal positive positive.
Speaker 3:I don't believe it.
Speaker 1:I don't even believe in recessions, I don't even believe in all that. I think it's just all scope of a perception. Because you know you, you have, and maybe because I came from a very you know as a refugee, you only got one way to go and that's up right. So it kind of gives you an aspect of life that it's always going to be okay.
Speaker 1:You know, get out there and work as long as you're able and healthy, the rest will fall in line. You know type idea. But yeah, but stability. I love that we're having this conversation because that's something I think a lot of people get stuck on as much as we're getting stuck on it, because everyone talks about being stable. But then when you flip the question and say, okay, what's stability for you? Well, I don't know.
Speaker 1:It's a tough thing to answer, like, I think validation is a form of stability, to know that the things that you've invested in your life are wasted, which I would never say to someone that you've wasted a moment. I don't believe that there's such a thing as waste. I was at a conference in South America last year where I had this incredible genius doctor in his 70s give a presentation and he said First line of his presentation was show me in nature where the garbage pile is. There's no such thing as garbage. Nature doesn't create garbage. Nothing is wasted, nothing will ever be wasted, and that includes your time. So I love that idea because you know, as you age, you want to have some validation that all the work you've done in a variety of things, whatever it is, can all come together to play some part in your success right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I'm getting real deep here.
Speaker 2:It's just interesting. I think that's like different semantics and different versions. You know, I'm not going to lie like, at the end of the day, it would be nice to have an income that matches higher than, like you know, the baseline, you know. But yeah, I think also that certain, yeah, certain skills are valued more in certain structures that we live in. But I think that there's you can do a lot with not very much. And yeah, I guess stability, I guess, is always a shifting target because, it depends on what you know.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking through all the different stages of one's life that I've already had and that that stability. You know the couch analogy versus like thinking about oh, what would it be like to make X amount of money and like an hour, like is that possible? Or like what would that look like? How would my life change, like you know, if I wasn't worried about something? How would that look?
Speaker 1:like you know what kind of freedom would I have if I don't have to worry about feeding myself right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I think like a lot of change for me happened through because of the West program and the job, with sweet and discreet that like really shifted that prior mentality of yeah, just always a scarcity thinking and you know there's something really powerful to find an internal stability, regardless of how, like not knowing when you're not what your next job will be, but thinking that you know, trusting that you can find a job and that you have. You know, I, I guess that like the internal shift and maybe that's something I'm still sort of grappling with, and like that belief that they're like you know that I will be employed again or you know yeah, and you will be like, I mean, like I can tell you that, with just pure confidence that the welding industry is just that type of industry.
Speaker 1:It's one of the. It's one of the bragging points. I got into welding when I was 17. And I've been university.
Speaker 1:I've been different trades, I've done different things, you know, young parent, musician, all these things but at the end of the day, whenever I was like oh I gotta get my my feet back under me, welding was always there. And and that's why I think people talk about recessions Welding doesn't really have recessions because you know recessions are for for, like, the first thing you do is trim luxury in a recession. Welding is not really necessarily a luxury item. It's kind of a thing that's needed to keep the wheels turning on society going back to like the Romans. So like, I mean, it's not going anywhere, anywhere anytime soon, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like the trades will for sure, like that's something that's really interesting moving away from, like hospitality or teaching positions, like sure, teaching will always be there, but there are cutbacks and things like that. But and like, yeah, like hospitality is definitely seasonal or, you know, has its ups and downs, but trades, you know, there's something really great about being able to build something.
Speaker 1:Do you see, like I mean, this might be the obvious connection, but perhaps it's not that you will do metal art as you know, going forward like, do people have an expectation of you, perhaps even in school, saying hey, you know welding, you're in art school, you know, show me or teach me, or you know whatever it is?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean yeah, definitely, like there's metal in the work that I've been making recently and I'm excited to learn more. And yeah, I mean I don't necessarily think about artworks within like a medium specificity, like metal art or in that way, like in six months from now, I'm going to do a metal piece.
Speaker 2:I mean there's like metal that will be involved in some pieces. But, um, yeah, I guess I think of like the, I guess like my like driving point is usually from like a concept or an idea of my research that I've been doing and then coming to the material through that. But you know, metal is definitely something that has so many different associations that it will most likely be in most of the work I make. Yeah, but I'm not necessarily If it happens, it happens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I think there's something interesting about sort of, yeah, working, whatever the project or the research or the main, like question, you're trying, you're like scratching that you know something, the material will appear. For what that?
Speaker 1:It'll present itself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I feel like that might sound a bit esoteric or like kind of like, what's she talking about? You know, yes, I will make some metal stuff. I don't necessarily think it's all about metal art, but yes, there'll be some metal in the future and I'm excited to weld. Yeah, and in terms of like teaching people or things like that, yeah, like I mean, I think within the arts like there's always sort of like knowledge or at least like.
Speaker 2:My ethos is like you know, if I know something, I'll let you know. I'll show you. You know, like we're all here to learn, nothing is you know. We're all here to share what we know. So yeah, I've been really interested. I've been doing a lot of metal casting recently. That's something new I've been learning about, so that's been really exciting.
Speaker 1:Or plaster casting or resin sand.
Speaker 2:I'd love to do some lost wax. We've been doing some iron pours here too, so that's exciting. So all those days of lifting stairs, and like you're doing that.
Speaker 1:You've got all the muscles.
Speaker 2:Now for it. You know I'm grateful. Yeah, all those days in the park with the 16 year old boys trying to do pull ups with them, you know, like learning how to. You know, yeah, that kind of thing, it's been good. It's been good work, it's been applicable to lots of different things Awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, I got a couple more questions for you. We're getting close to the end of the interview here. I'm interested. Earlier you said you know one of the things that you really focus on in your art study is the use of space.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:And and you made that comment and the use of space is something that comes very much to the forefront in the world of metal fabrication, because you, a lot of people often ask me, like, what's the difference between a welder and a fabricator? And welders work within the spectrum of you know the weld, weld quality weld, you know speed, all these things that have to do with the joining of materials together.
Speaker 1:The fabricator has to be much more concerned with the space, the shifting, the movements, and even in terms of being able to visualize the finished constructed piece from a 2D drawing and put it in your head and understand it. You know and it's something I've said to many people like a good fabricator is able to look at something and visualize it in head and be able to spin it and move it, and actually be able to pick something out from your mind that in reality, is wrong.
Speaker 1:We're like, oh, that's not right, and then being able to connect to, so from like a mental spatial recognition to a physical matter. That sounds a little wishy-washy, but it is something that happens in the fabrication world, like and some people don't have that, and that's fine. They don't have that and they struggle with fabrication because they're constantly trying to interpret 2D into 3D and you got to go to like the 4D, to really get it right Now in your world and in studying space.
Speaker 1:Explain to me what that means to you in the art context and if you see that connection to what I just said.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I think what you were saying like there's sort of two ways to think about it. There's like one sort of from like the technical aspect. Like you know, you're essentially creating like an isometric drawing within your head where you're doing the CAD program. Solid works is happening already without the solid works and I do think that folks can learn and I think that that sort of spatial awareness I really learned from like my coworkers, like Sean Cosmic, is like amazing. He like can see. He's got like a ruler in his head. You know it's like yeah.
Speaker 2:And like also like yeah, there's different. Like I would say, yeah, so there's that aspect. And then I guess you could also think about it philosophically, like in terms of like parallel worlds or the multiverse or sort of that kind of thinking of how this is expanded past this, this particular moment. But in terms of the like the sculpture program, I mean. I think that's like always a question about the relationship between form and content, and also sort of like social context is like a large portion of the discussions, particularly when you're working with materials or content that has, like a particular social significance. So I base is not only like the transforming materials into 3D shape or creating that within your mind, but it's also creating an understanding of the sort of social geography or what is happening in a social context, what that meaning is, how does that impact relations that sort?
Speaker 2:of thing would way to think about it. But I think it's a larger question, like you know, thinking about spatial theory versus like pictorial theory or like the figurative or the surface within painting. Those are sort of spatial theory in some ways. Maybe has been less researched or talked about in an explicit way just because of maybe the I wonder, like how the screen has sort of collapsed space in some way in different formats.
Speaker 1:And when you talk about, like the social awareness of your four or of the art base you know, that's another interesting thing because that's also affecting the welding industry. You know I was at a conference and there was a lady from Denmark talking about the social responsibility of welding.
Speaker 1:How that exists on the corporate level, but on a personal level, you know to understand that. You know for me to do this welding, I am burning fossil fuels and I'm, you know, using energy to produce something that has a footprint to you know. It increases my footprint as a human on this planet. But also there's the counterbalance of the fact that steel is the most recyclable product that we know. So, at the end of the day, everything I invest into this I will be able to be pulled back out, which you can't say for very many materials.
Speaker 1:No, in your world, in the art world, you know what. What does steel represent? Or what could it represent? Because for me, I would see it as something eternal. And I've had that feeling, even when I've built things out of stainless in industrial applications, that I've thought to myself, as I'm welding up this stainless thing, that this will last forever. This thing will be here in the ground. In 10,000 years, you know, the world will have blown itself to bits, the next people will have evolved or aliens will come and they'll dig up this stupid thing and be like hey, this is still here.
Speaker 1:I have a piece of that connection.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't think about that with brick. I don't think about that with wood. You know, like you look at archaeological digs and you know, something 10,000 years ago made out of wood is barely recognizable, if it exists at all. Right, is that the same world? Am I in the same world as your world, or am? I in a different world.
Speaker 2:No, I think there's many worlds within a world, right, so I don't think I can speak for like the art world, but I do. I'm interested in what you're saying about the eternal aspect or like you know, and the recyclability, but that is also resources extraction, but I guess, like you know, it's complicated. I think that still represents in many ways sort of like the strength, yeah, but also it's like counterpart of, like its imposition, or it's in on severity or austerity or like its prominence. I'd sort of like can in some ways be a representation of like the structures that exist already. And I guess I am duly interested in how, you know, the textile is always. You know, if you go back to the archeological digs, it's always a fragment because it's only been preserved oftentimes if it was like encased in or within something more durable.
Speaker 2:And I wonder a lot about the things that are perhaps invisible or but that have had just as large of an impact on civilized regions and like things like that, and like the power of something that is maybe so imperceivable, like you know how dust can shift an environment but you can't see it, or how you know. So I guess I think about steel in like both its austereness but also how it hides, you know it too can be so fragile, you know. And like something that is perceived as fragile can be so strong, or like you know. So I guess I think a lot about that. And even just in working with metal, you know, it's interesting seeing like undergraduate students start working with metal for the first time and like sort of like the aggression they might approach to the material, but it's funny because Be gentle, be gentle.
Speaker 2:Like you'll get that whole if you just let up a little bit. You know you don't need a force, but not that much. Or like you know and even thinking about my own like kind of relationship, you know metal is actually quite soft, you know as like different, you know it's my favorite medium.
Speaker 1:People like is it would easier? You're a metal art, you know you're in the metal. Wouldn't would be easier because it's lighter. And to me, what is the hardest medium to work with? Like by far? I would want I would rather build a house out of feathers than one like, honestly like.
Speaker 2:Well, it's tricky. It's like what is that job? I'll also like I mean, there's so many different types of what, just as this types of battle like it's. So it's living in a different way. So you're working with this other entity and maybe in some ways it's more akin to like a textile and that it's like has that sort of living quality. But yeah, I don't know. I guess, yeah, what you're saying, or is this getting a little bit?
Speaker 1:No, I love it. I mean, my undergrad was philosophy. I could do this all day yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So what? What's on the, what's on the horizon? You know what's the, what's the, what's the, the end state that you see, you know for yourself, and I kind of feel like I already know your answer for this, because we danced around it a little bit, but you know, you got a lot of things on the horizon. You're going to a fantastic program right now which I'm sure is teaching you a million things, which is what they're supposed to do you know you're in the States right now.
Speaker 1:You kind of thought about, you know, living in the States or coming back to Canada. Are you just taking it as it comes, or or is there, or is there kind of the next step? You're hoping to get to a certain point soon, outside of the stability? In the previous conversation you know.
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean, I think that it is a question of what opportunities present themselves, and it's not just like letting things come to you, but it's also pursuing them. There's a few different, like sort of art residencies and, of course, fellowships or teaching opportunities that would be wonderful, and also there's some fab shops that I'm really, like you know, hoping to reach out to or see if they would take me on. So a lot of it depends on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it depends on a lot of it depends on like luck and I think somehow I feel like I have had a lot of luck in my life, so I'm you make luck.
Speaker 1:I firmly believe. I'm not very much into the. I guess the, the, the spirit, I don't know, right, I don't know. I don't.
Speaker 1:I'm not really superstitious, I'm not really into any of that stuff. I'm not I wouldn't call myself an atheist, but I'm heavily agnostic. But I definitely believe in energy, because that's just science. And I believe in energy and I believe that like attracts, like welding is an exact example of positive and negative creating something. And that's life. That's life. I push positive out, I get positive back and that's on me, that's on me, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's. You know it is interesting. You know the ability to believe in some change being possible, you know. Yeah, I guess I'm not really answering your question quite concretely, but I'm excited for what will come next and just to be able to hopefully continue to pursue my practice that will also include welding. Yeah, I guess I'm just excited to be alive.
Speaker 1:What's next?
Speaker 2:I guess that's like maybe the like joy of the academic bubble you know of, like just getting to be learning, like the knowledge for knowledge sake you know, it's just a very wonderful privilege and it really is. And I don't take it lightly, like I never would have imagined this for myself, and I'm yeah it.
Speaker 1:You know it's, it's amazing, and I hope to have some form of that, you know, going forward and Well, understanding it and appreciating it is going to guarantee that you give it back out, right, because you're ingesting all this knowledge, which is also energy, and, like a battery, it's going to have to go somewhere, right? It'll go into your art. Obviously that is a reservoir of that energy, but it'll also go into other people, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I'm excited for what might come, so, yeah.
Speaker 1:So to wrap up the interview, let's go over a couple. I want to ask you just maybe one or two final questions. First of all, you know, as a female, and you know in these, in these I would say welding is a non-traditional pathway for women, which I hope that changes. But we're a long way from that right now. You know, what advice would you give to perhaps someone in your own situation who's kind of like come up, try a few things, you know, feel pretty good about life but is looking for something a little bit better, and they're looking at, they're thinking about welding. You know, what would you say to them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess it's interesting. I think that in any situation and I think it's you know, it's obviously things are different as a white woman working in within the trades, if I'm a person of color, and also if I'm trans or if I'm queer.
Speaker 1:That intersectionality of a variety of things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, intersectionality makes a huge and I think the trades really. I mean it depends on where you're, it's so contextual, but you know it is something to be, you know, the only one on site, whatever that is, you know the only one. But I think what you know, some folks have asked me the question here in school as well, like, how do I relate gender to working in these sort of male dominated or perceived male dominated fields? And I guess I try. It's for me.
Speaker 2:I just always think about, like your goal, like the pursuit of lifelong learning and the pursuit of, like you know, trying, like trying a skill, like, and the pursuit of excellence. So, like your brain is plastic, there's a growth mindset. One person is not x, y, z. There are there's ways to learn and I guess I just think about what has, like you know you might have a tough day, you didn't do the thing right, somebody says something, it really throws you off, or like whatever might come up. You know, if you concentrate on the skill and like learning from folks who are just as passionate about the skill and doing good work and believing in a group, like you can't do something alone, you work together. If, like you can find that, then I think there's that's sort of like what I think about when going into a space that might be unfamiliar or where you might feel like you're the odd person out you know.
Speaker 1:And there's something to be said about the experience, and this is a fine line. So I'm a person of color.
Speaker 3:I didn't know English.
Speaker 1:Growing up it was you know there's situations that happen. I've been a very I would say fairly racist part of the country's Saskatchewan. I've experienced a lot of racism even recently, just last week at the airport. I had an incident. But you take those situations and you learn from them. They're still learning to be taken from a bad situation, right? And a lot of it is how you react, because you want to be an advocate of change and you definitely don't want to leave things on the table that you felt like you should have done.
Speaker 1:That's not a great feeling, but you also want to be aware that there's ways to do change that are not going to give that negative. You're not going to amplify the negative message. You don't want to amplify the negative message. What you want to do is you just want to overwrite that negative message with, hopefully, overwhelming positivity. Right, that's kind of like the angle.
Speaker 2:Totally. I think there's something to be said about choosing your battles and, I think, also recognizing where you might play into something as well. So like being aware, like a self-reflexive aspect to it as well. So for, yeah, I just think, yeah, it's important to stay on the focus of a different world as possible. I think as hard as that is and as f***ed up as certain things can be and you're just like how the f*** is happening and you know not, as it swallows a lot of people up.
Speaker 1:I have friends who are swallowed right now.
Speaker 2:No, I'm not going to lie. There's days that you've got to go sort of dissociate, or you go somewhere else Compartmentalize yeah, compartmentalize, and that has its impact or its repercussions on the body and the sense of self. It's, you know there's a lot of. I would say that there is a need for an inner strength, you know, but that's also with like a huge, like level of empathy. A lot of the times when folks say stuff, it comes from a place and it's trying to understand that place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're hurting too somehow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess so, and I think you know a white woman. It's also important to persist inize when things happen on site that you don't want to sit before as well, and that sort of. But there's ways to do things, I think are through showing rather than saying, and I think that's where you know if ever, in a leadership position, like to lead in a way that is, you know, truly equitable rather than and that is a different thing than a- quality for her.
Speaker 2:If you want to be justice oriented as well as a leader, I think that requires a certain level of like self reflection and also knowledge of your coworkers and what is you know what is close to them and how to change an environment. But I guess I feel like I'm getting a little esoteric again.
Speaker 1:But yes, I would say it's true, like it's a pendulum swing, it's not a static line, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like also like, just like practicals, like you don't like the job move. Yeah move, you know honestly, get yourself set up like, call on your friends Like networking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had a women in trades like WhatsApp where, like we would share, like if there was a job posting or like share like you know this employer don't work there, don't work. It's like those are like practical kind of things Also, like having you know. There's like the hey, how's it going? The other, like another woman on site, is like a nice way to like also finding the bathrooms, finding which bathrooms to like. Is there a coffee shop or like a place you know or like you can ask.
Speaker 2:You can ask your site like the site manager or the foreman like hey, is there, can you make a bathroom that locks, you know, like just certain things, um, that can provide you safety? And then also I like to look, uh like scan, scan a space and see who is interacting in what way and who would be someone that you can sort of shadow or work with, that, you know, you can have each other's back, because a lot of the things you have to really trust each other, because Mentorship is a huge part of this trade, yeah.
Speaker 2:And, like you know, you can get hurt real easy and it doesn't matter a woman, a man, whatever, we all die the same, yeah. So it's like you really have to see who's working and moving in a way that looks like they are looking out for themselves and one another, and then look to build relationships that way you know, and.
Speaker 2:I think like there's a power of a domino effect, of, like you know, it doesn't take much to shift a space. I think like it can happen. So, yeah, I guess. Uh, those are the many things growth, mindset, pursue excellence, reach out to other people, to create those mentorship opportunities.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I think it's important to sometimes, I think to shift the conversation from um, you know what's it like being a woman in non-tradition, or like in a male dominated or a majority male? You know, like, how do we shift that conversation? Like, let's start from a different angle. How do we create an environment that is, you know, uplifting, exciting for everyone, where everyone is value? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like I think you know, a space that is good for a woman is also a space that is good for many. Or, like you know, like if we. It's like less of this, like accommodation mentality, but it's a centering.
Speaker 1:Well, accommodations come from equality, not equity right.
Speaker 3:That's kind of the two ways to look at it.
Speaker 1:But it is tough and you know I'm in a leadership position and it's very. I try very hard to not, you know, make the same mistakes that I've witnessed, because there's it's easy to repeat mistakes if you've seen them or if you're a part of systems that are you consider to be not great. Then you yourself, you know continue with that same system and I'm kind of like a chaos in a box. So it's tough at the best of times to know what I'm going to do.
Speaker 2:So, but that's perfect. You know, I'm like you know, it's that self-reflexivity like constant learning. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Now, last question I got for you how do people find your art, how do people see what you do? How do people know where you are? I definitely want to check it out. You know like what's? Tell me how to do it, tell everyone how to do it.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah. So my Instagram is h underscore underscore L, underscore underscore D, so nice and cryptic, and my website is my full name, so Helen Lena dryfelscom. And those are two spots that you can see some of my older work on my website and then some of the newer things that I'm thinking about. And there's, of course, the Yale School of Art their webpage as well. You can see all my code word and things like that.
Speaker 1:Awesome, awesome. Well, is there any shout outs you'd like to send out to anybody, any hellos or anything?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I mean I just like a huge shout out to the D&D team, like discrete and discreet. So that's Tom King, sean Cosnick, gideon Nuff, there's also Lucas. There's so many folks that are involved there. So just big shout out. I'm so grateful. And of course, donna and Danny first. Yeah, and the women in trades program too, at George Brown. Like I couldn't have done any, yeah, we're going to have imagined all this for myself. So it's thanks to those programs.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, thank you very much, and I think I'm going to follow up with you, because I think this might be a good article for a magazine too. So we may be knocking on your door again here, but thank you so much, Helen. This has been a fantastic interview. I've really enjoyed the talk and I love how we got really deep there. That's my jam. I can do that.
Speaker 1:We definitely need to sit down and have a beer sometime and really get into the. I mean, we didn't even touch on cosmology, like. I mean that's where that's a whole part of like. I got a book on it right there in my book.
Speaker 2:I'm excited for our philosophical questions Awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you very much.
Speaker 2:Thank you, max. Yeah, have a good day.
Speaker 1:All right and for all the people that have been listening and following along here on the podcast. Thank you so much. Make sure you continue to download, share and comment and please send us your suggestions. We're always receiving great suggestions from our audience for people that you think are just cool or got a great story and, like you all know who follow the show, I have no boundaries. We can go from students to CEOs, it doesn't matter to me. Everyone's got a story and we all need to hear them. So thank you very much and I'll catch you at the next show. We hope you enjoy the show.
Speaker 4:You've been listening to the CWB Association Welding Podcast with Max Seren. If you enjoyed what you heard today, rate our podcast and visit us at CWBassociationorg to learn more. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions on what you'd like to learn about in the future. Produced by the CWB group and presented by Max Seren, this podcast serves to educate and connect the Welding community. Do subscribe and thank you for listening.