In the cavernous, noisy workspace of the Industrial Arts Workshop, tucked away on Herbert Way in Pittsburgh’s Hazelwood neighborhood, sparks are flying. Almost every afternoon the room fills with high-school-age students, who pull on protective gear and hurry back to their personal projects. Metal sculptures — a phoenix, flowers, a deer’s head, a set of hands — are spaced around the room, and behind heavy, protective curtains in cubbies, the students use welding tools to shape their work. They’re part of the nonprofit workshop’s popular and free after-school program, which gathers between 18 and 24 students for instruction on welding and working with metal through an incremental curriculum. The workshop hosts a smaller group of students in the summer months for an intensive boot camp program, where the team works on a group public art project. Programs for adults are also in the pilot stage. Some of the students’ projects are displayed as public art pieces around Hazelwood, including the "Braids of Hope” installation at Second Avenue and Tecumseh Street. The mural-and-sculpture installation features a figure painted on the wall with braided hair made out of metal, stretching across the building. Flower-shaped metal bike racks created by IAW members have also begun sprouting around the neighborhood. Beyond the technical instruction, the programs focus on other skills, like working together, director Tim Kaulen said. "The important part is to create these powerful learning experiences, that are about relationships, and are about collaboration, and it’s not just the focus of providing not only technical skill-building opportunities, but soft-skill development, too,” said Kaulen. "How to be a good team member, how to communicate and represent your ideas and be supportive of others (are) a big part of the workshop as well.” For the students, participating in the IAW’s programs can be a gateway to a new creative passion. "I love the artistic part about it,” said Pittsburgh CAPA student Destini Barron, 16, whose designs shaped the "Braids of Hope” project. "Any idea that I come up with, I can turn it into a metal structure.” Welding workshop Prior to the inception of the IAW in Hazelwood, Kaulen ran a program called the Mobile Sculpture Workshop at Carrie Furnace, which helped him gauge youth interest in arts and trades. Many of the students who attend the current after-school program are returning members. Some have participated in a previous semester’s after-school program, while others got involved through the summer camp. They hail from all around the region, including Hazelwood, Homestead, Millvale, Wilkinsburg, Larimer and Braddock. Anthony Minniefield, 17, of Taylor Allderdice, lead the project to create the hands-shaped sculpture that stands near the entrance of the workshop during the 2022 summer program. "I designed it. I was the one who was calling a lot of the shots, seeing that it’s modeled after my own hands,” he said. "I was pretty much leading everybody.” Minniefield now works at the workshop. He wants to get involved in an industrial career after high school and is looking into taking dual enrollment classes at CCAC. He never expected to be teaching other students, but he sees a bit of his past self in the newer participants. "It’s funny, at first, because they don’t really know what they’re doing, and they’re always coming back for help,” he said. "I remember when I was in their same spot coming for help all the time, so it’s kind of fun seeing how me being a teacher helps.” Emily McFarland, 16, a student at Spectrum Charter School in Monroeville, has known since she was 5 years old that she wanted to be a welder. "Once it was introduced to me that they were doing this, I jumped at it,” she said. She joined the workshop last year in the fall, and has kept coming back. "It’s fun getting to build stuff and make things come to life,” she said. Paloma Pelfrey, 19, is currently on a gap year after graduating from Fox Chapel. She found out about the summer program from a flyer at a local library in 2022 and returned in 2023 as a student assistant through AmeriCorps. She’s been volunteering to teach classes for the after-school program. She’s always enjoyed hands-on work and creating, she said, and likes the opportunity to contribute to larger art pieces. "So many people were always looking for this organization—they are always reaching out for projects, or we’re always pushing for projects,” she said. "That’s inspiring. I never knew about this place before. Finding out that people want the youth to create public art for them is really awesome, and getting to be a part of something that you see in public.” The workshop sparked Pelfrey’s interest in the manufacturing field in the future, she said. "It definitely guided me. I’m not sure what I would be doing right now if I wasn’t doing this,” she said. "It kind of gave me direction, and definitely a lot of drive.” Heavy-duty construction is interesting to her as an artist. "My favorite thing about metal is it’s so hard to destroy,” she said. "I also really love the torch, and getting to learn the different ways I can manipulate the metal. That, and I’m always working on refining my technical skills.” Creative community Kelcey Rounsville, program manager at the Industrial Arts Workshop, organizes schedules for activities, sets up the curriculum, and coordinates summer programs. She has a background in social work from high school college and career counseling and is also an artist herself. More often than not, she says she finds herself using that past experience and "wearing her social worker hat.” "It’s not just about whether or not students learn how to weld,” she said. "We really want to help encourage them to become their own person. (It’s about) being a voice to sit and talk about what’s going on in life, talking about career opportunities, schools. "You have to give room to make sure the student is well in all parts of their being before you can say, alright, let’s go work on your welding.” Milo Benson, 16, an online Woodland Hills High School student, was drawn to the program by the community aspect of the workshop. "I’d love to go weld, because that’s something I’ve always wanted to do, and I’ve wanted a community of people that I could hang with,” he said. "I like how it’s really not guided. It’s guided, but it’s not like somebody’s holding your hand. You get a lot of freedom on what you’re doing. If you need help, you can go to somebody about it, but you’re really encouraged to just figure it out.” The program also gives students experience with problem-solving, Rounsville said. "Art can help a student with troubleshooting, resilience, and ‘if it didn’t work the first time, I’m going to try again,’” she said. "Art helps them with self-expression, self-discovery, independent thinking, creativity, all of these things, and art can be a mouthpiece for a lot of different social issues. The things that students care about, we say, ‘that’s an important piece of you, and you are certainly reflected in the art you make.’” The workshop tries to be an intentional, welcoming space, she added. "We want to empower the students,” she said. "I think when a kid hears an adult say, ‘I have confidence in you to do this,’ it really speaks to them and encourages them in what their belief is in themself.” And for Kaulen? As the workshop’s leader, he, too, has learned from his students. "I learn every day,” he said. "I don’t have answers for everything every day, because we’re constantly introduced (to) new challenges and new obstacles, and new needs, but I learn every day through the proximity of these teens that are pretty dynamic and super creative and very talented. They’re learning their path of being a citizen and a community member. It’s an inspiring place to be as an old person, too.” Julia Maruca is a TribLive reporter covering health and the Greensburg and Hempfield areas. She joined the Trib in 2022 after working at the Butler Eagle covering southwestern Butler County. She can be reached at jmaruca@triblive.com. Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free. Get Ad-Free >