Inspired welding students grateful for program at MCC
Nathan Humphreys
Hot metal sparks ricochet off the darkened face shield worn by students as they work on their sculpture projects at the welding lab at MCC.Located at the far edge of the south parking lot, the welding lab was designed and proposed by welding department chair, Ron Hammil. The lab serves classes that range from vocational welding training to sculptural welding.
“The faculty is truly a great faculty. It’s the best one that I’ve seen at an educational faculty,” said Dick Wright, one of the sculptural welding instructors.
Wright, who used to weld for a living, said his technical knowledge and experience are what the students need most from him.
“They come in here with their designs and their plans and their ideas. I’m not really an art person, so what I do is facilitate their learning about the material,” he said.
“My job is to take their ideas and provide the know-how to bring it into being,” Wright said.
Another welding sculpture instructor, Wayne Cundiff, had a similar perspective.
“I’m not really an artsy person. I get real joy out of making practical things like gates and lattices, so I’m not much help to students in that area, but I can give a little advice here and there,” Cundiff said.
“What I’m good at, and what I do, is figuring things out. I’ve always been in a bit of a teaching role, and I can figure things out, and then figure out how to show others how I got it so they can understand me better,” he added.
Welding sculpture student and retired home-ec teacher Nan Murdock has found Cundiff’s explanations to be helpful.
“It took me a long time to get the hang of MIG welding, but Wayne would show me little tips and tricks and I’d go ‘Wow.’ That works a whole lot better,” Murdock said.
Murdock said she was surprised by the number of women taking the class.
“When I first took it last fall, there was just me and a couple of the other gals who have been doing this forever, but this year I look around and there are a lot of women in the class,” she said.
“I think it’s very empowering to create this thing out of steel, and the great thing is that almost anyone can do it,” Murdock added.
Murdock and Cundiff said that many times students repeat the sculptural welding class to work on projects and use the lab facilities.
“If students come in here a second semester then I pretty much let them alone until they need me. They already know how to use the equipment and the safety rules. If they’ve made it through the first semester then I don’t have to worry about them,” Cundiff said.
Both Wright and Cundiff said they enjoyed seeing the diversity of work their students create.
“I’ve got one gal who does art with clothes, so she’s making these hangers by heating up an iron wire and bending it into a hanger shape. And I’ve got Sandy and Joanne who are working on their lawn sculptures and Paul’s always making his pieces that move in different ways when the wind blows,” Cundiff said.
Wright said he enjoys seeing his students taking mundane things and creating art out of them.
“I’ve got one student who took some disks from an old tractor plow and has
