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She-Weld: Blacksmith Marsha Trattner Creates Using Steel And Flame

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Marsha Trattner's Red Hook workshop is part art studio, part science lab.

She runs She-Weld, a blacksmithing and welding business offering classes.

When she's not teaching, Marsha is creating. Her works range from the aesthetic, including sculpture, to the functional, like tableware.

Her hand-forged pie pans spend time in a furnace under roaring flame.

"You want to get it to about 1,800 degrees or a little bit more," she said.

For Marsha, working with heavy hammers and high temperatures can be meditative.

"It's very relaxing," she said.

But it's not always pretty.

"It's really hard to get clean," she said. "You have to embrace it."

Even in a creative space, certain behaviors are frowned upon.

"Never pick up a blacksmith's hammer," she said. "It would be like I came in your house, and I've put on your socks or something. You just don't do it."

On a typical day, Marsha might be tinkering at her desk, torching small objects like napkin rings.

"Someone will come by, like from the local pizzeria, and their sauce mixing machine broke, and they need a little piece welded on to fix it," she said.

Each day at She-Weld brings a new challenge. Reshaping metal requires use of geometry, physics, and predictive thinking.

"The other really cool thing about blacksmithing and welding is that you just never know everything," she said. "There's always something new to learn."

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