ARTS FOR AMATEURS : Students Carry Torches for Classes on Creating Welded Sculpture

Dorothy Maston-Stage’s Granada Hills garage is full of heavy metal artists who would rather perform with a torch than a guitar.

As her students bend over their workstations, torch in hand, they concentrate on creating large and small figures of their own choosing, the torches hissing like the zoo snake compound on a really bad day.

This is the off-campus site of the Cal State Northridge Extension welded sculpture classes, and the students who gather here could be escapees from George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic in their futuristic protective helmets and gloves.

Maston-Stage, a metalist of note as well as a teacher, says part of the joy of creating with metal is that it is both easy to learn and a tremendous stress reliever.

She said she has men and women who have been in offices or the courtroom or operating room all day, who come to class to become totally engrossed in a manual art. And, although technicalities of metal art are easy to learn, the process does involve working with a volatile gas and demands care.

The total absorption is one of the pluses, Maston-Stage said. “It’s a good way to take your mind off your job and your private life.”

Although the classes attract as many women as men, the macho blue-collar ambience makes it seem as if these might be the only art classes at CSUN Extension that you have to join a union to take.

Of course, you do not.

Maston-Stage, a petite, dainty woman with an encouraging teaching style, says she learned to weld at her father’s knee.

“My father, who was a dentist, let me use his small torch to make wax dolls and figures from the time I was a little girl,” she said. “And I’ve been fascinated by the form ever since.”

After growing up in Van Nuys and graduating from CSUN with a degree in fine arts, Maston-Stage began teaching at various community workshops.

She took an artistic side trip into clay sculpture after she was married. But when her children were growing and breakage reached unacceptable levels, she went back to her first love, welding, in both her own studio and as a teacher in the classroom.

Maston-Stage began teaching welded sculpture at CSUN in 1977 but says she went off campus when the welding shop burned down three years ago. She went to university officials and said she would be willing to hold the classes at her home studio, adding that she had six workstations with torches, as well as insurance.

The administrators agreed, and Maston-Stage has invited welding wanna-bes into her studio ever since.

Having the classes on her home territory means that Maston-Stage can allow students to continue working on projects long after their scheduled class is over and that she can accept students between the regularly scheduled CSUN classes.

“Past and current students call all the time to ask if they can put in extra studio time,” Maston-Stage said. Once students are no longer enrolled in a class, they may continue their projects at the studio for a small equipment and materials fee.

Marjorie Berman started in one of Maston-Stage’s classes two years ago and has been carrying a torch ever since.

A Sherman Oaks resident who has been a Delta Air Lines flight attendant for 15 years, she dabbled in several art forms as a method of recreational creation. When she heard about the welding class, she was immediately interested.

And, just as quickly turned off.

“I was afraid of the equipment and really didn’t like the noise. When six torches are going at once, it makes a high-pitched hiss that can really get to you,” she said.

Once she had overcome her initial doubts, welding became her medium of choice.

“I remember being asked, in the beginning of my class, to make something out of a square. I made a dollhouse-sized chair, and I still remember how exciting it was, and what a sense of accomplishment I felt,” she said.

Although Berman has been working on an ornately decorated mural for many months, she says she is still delighted and amazed by her chosen art form.

“It’s really satisfying in so many ways,” she said. “But I still can’t believe I’m doing it. I guess I never envisioned myself as a steelworker.”

Suzanne Perissi, also of Sherman Oaks, tricked herself into metalworking.

“I had done other kinds of artwork, but when I saw a picture of a welded metal horse in a magazine, I just fell in love,” the Los Angeles Zoo docent said.

It was only after she had signed up for a class, gotten over her initial fear of the equipment and started creating her version of the horse that she brought the magazine picture in for her instructor to see.

“She told me the animal was probably made of papier-mache,” said Perissi, laughing. “But by then I was already hooked.”

Perissi enrolled in one of Maston-Stage’s classes about two years ago and remembers being surprised when she first saw her teacher.

“I was expecting a tall, burly sort of woman, but she was smallish, dainty, with an open face and bright eyes.”

Maston-Stage’s appearance helped Perissi understand that you don’t have to pump iron to take the class, only weld it.

“There were both men and women in the class, and no one had a hard time during the initial learning stage. Dorothy explains and demonstrates how to use the equipment and helps you every step of the way,” Perissi said.

She added that on nice days, the morning classes work on the patio. The equipment is set up outside, “and you can work under the trees,” she said. “It’s very pleasant.”

Perissi said that the torch is not heavy and that the only time the noise is bothersome is when the torch hits a bad piece of metal or there is too much oxygen going into the torch.

She is completing a large llama, which she says she’s been told is museum-quality.

Perissi said she has worked in other mediums including jewelry and music. “What I love about metal sculpture is that it is not as confining as smaller pieces. You can make grand mistakes and either correct them or work with them.”

Her instructor agrees.

“One of the wonderful things about working in metal is that it’s a forgiving art, one where mistakes are small setbacks not a disaster,” Maston-Stage said.

Although CSUN Extension’s next welding classes will not begin until the spring semester, Maston-Stage offers private classes on an ongoing basis at her workshop.

“Sometimes students come to me through the extension program and sometimes they hear about me from other students and just call the studio,” she said.

For private students, there is a $165 fee that includes 30 hours of class time as well as equipment and materials. For those who wish to wait for the next CSUN class, there is a $115 fee, plus a $25 materials fee for 16 hours of work.