Welder Joanne Guthrie

Joanne Guthrie didn’t need a magic wand to realize her dream of becoming a full-time artist. A welding rod was enough to do the trick, enabling the St. Albert resident to work in her favourite medium.

“Honestly, I love working with metal, It’s so fun, and so hard, but you can transform it into so many different things.”

Said Joanne Guthrie

What she’s transformed with that material is limited only by her imagination. Relying on mostly scraps, Guthrie has created everything from creating monolithic-like installations to wire sculptures, many of which have graced galleries and public spaces. Recently, those eclectic efforts were on full display at her exhibition, “Elemental Daydreams,” which ended a three-month run at Stony Plain’s Red Brick Common in January.

Also earlier this year, Guthrie’s work shared space with installations from five other female artists in the lobby of Edmonton’s Walterdale Theatre during the Skirts Afire festival in March. She’s been especially prolific the past few years with landing exhibition dates at the VASA Gallery in St. Albert as well as The Carrot, the Deep Freeze Festival, the Bleeding Hearts Gallery, NextFest, and various public library locations in Edmonton. Through it all, Guthrie admits that inking those squares on her calendar have demonstrated that beating the promotional bushes has been every bit as vital as the effort she puts into her craft.

“I love creating things but it’s not always the art that stands out,” said Guthrie. “You still have to be able to get it in front of people. You just have to learn how to put yourself out there, and some people are a little afraid of that.”

That includes underscoring the subtleties of the messages inherent in the pieces she creates. For more than a decade the notions of eco-consciousness and sustainability have been top of mind for Guthrie, a strong advocate of environmental awareness and the need to recycle materials. The materials she uses are recycled, her way of demonstrating how discarded items can enjoy additional uses while reinforcing her belief that art and industry can be connected. 

It’s a philosophy Guthrie has embraced for years and one that will be incorporated into her latest project, Occupying Space, consisting of discarded plastic items she’s collected the past six years. She’s also working with Edmonton Area Land Trust, an organization geared towards converting donated property back to its natural origins.  

“People who have land donate it to them and they put it back to how nature used to be. They take down all the barbed wire and let it go back to nature. I’m doing sculptures, tapestries and stuff using invasive plants and the barbed wire.”  

said Joanne Guthrie

Guthrie’s artistic skills aren’t limited to welding sculptures. She also loves to draw, and when it comes to materials, she makes her own ink from berries, uses charcoal from her firepit and even makes her own paper for her drawings. Pretty much everything she does stays within the lines of her ecological and sustainability mindset. 

“So, if I was stripped of everything, I can still make art, because I can go into my backyard and collect berries or grab clay from the side of a river bed,” she added. “The earth provides us with so many things, it’s so amazing, I just love being able to make things from scratch. I love that.”

Guthrie has had a creative bent dating back to childhood, and wanted to pursue that as a career path while in high school. “I actually wanted to become an artist, but I really didn’t have the grades to go to university,” she recalled. “Welding was the next best thing, because eventually I wanted to use it in my mediums, so I thought I might as well learn.”

Before long, Guthrie received her journeyman’s ticket and a Grade B pressure welder’s certificate and managed to get work in the oil and gas industry. Financially, she made a comfortable living for herself and family, but realized the profession didn’t exactly satisfy her craving for what she really wanted to do. 

“The work-life balance wasn’t there and I wasn’t as passionate,” noted Guthrie. “There were lots of hours. You’re working all the time. It was crazy, but the money was good. It got to a point where I realized this was not my dream life.”

In 2013, she formed her own company, first contracting herself out to work on refineries, while spending whatever down time transitioning towards pursuing her craft full-time. “It’s not that easy to become an artist,” said Guthrie. “The arts world is completely different. To go from working as an industry person, like you’re behind a welding screen for 24 hours, to actually learning to use a computer, how to apply for gigs, writing an artist statement. I have learned so much in the last 10 years.”

Fortunately, these learning experiences, as hard as some of them may have been, didn’t dissuade Guthrie from the joy of transforming a piece of scrap metal into an item that’s more visually appealing. “It’s fun to make it into something that’s actually beautiful.”