Welder took flight from a rough proving ground
Portrait by Amos Moses
People who torch metal for a living have to be practical, and Catherine Murphy is no exception. “My love for welding started in the bathroom,” says the owner of Haw Creek Forge. Always down to earth, Murphy lived in a tent on a mountaintop in Hendersonville in the late ’70s, after realizing college wasn’t for her.
She needed a job, though, so the future artisan found a janitorial position at Clark Equipment Company in Skyland (where Linamar is now). “As I went from bathroom to bathroom cleaning, I observed people welding for the first time, and I was intrigued,” she says. She matriculated in Blue Ridge Community College’s welding program, and passed Clark’s welding test.
Murphy quickly met her next goal of attending the renowned Hobart Institute of Welding Technology in Troy, Ohio. Clark’s tuition-assistance program enabled the break, which her male co-workers considered preferential treatment. “I constantly had to prove myself as a woman, both at work, as one of only two female welders, and at school,” she says.
She humbly brands her Hobart performance “average,” but her next work stint, at an Ohio nuclear-power plant, saw her become a certified ironworker and supervisor on the same day, and introduced her to copper. “Workers were about to weld a big piece of copper; the minute they put the torch to it and I saw all the fantastic colors, I knew it was my material,” she recalls.
After returning to Asheville, Murphy worked selling welding supplies. On her off time, she took a “Copper Fetishes” class at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown. Making these small figures led her to try bigger items: a 12-inch dragonfly, frog, and praying mantis.
Between route stops on her day job, Murphy sold her new work to garden shops. To her amazement, she earned her first $600 as an artist at the long-running Mount Mitchell Crafts Fair, in 1992. “I thought, ‘I could really do this,’” she recalls. She forged from her Haw Creek studio in East Asheville and kept the name when she moved to her current digs in Woodfin, in 2002, where she now employs a staff of five, including Jason Emory, who helps with the design of commissioned pieces.
The welder’s creations range from whimsical outdoor frogs to sophisticated wall pieces adorned with gingko leaves and birds. One unlikely collector subset is entomologists, who like her work’s realistic anatomical detail. “I don’t sugarcoat nature,” Murphy says with a laugh. “One sculpture is a praying mantis eating another’s head.”
She waxes poetic about her process and her love for copper. “I fold, forge, abrade, sandblast, and anneal it [heat with a torch to a dull orange to soften it]. Sometimes it behaves the way you want it to, sometimes not. I know it inside and out. Copper’s forgiving, beautiful, versatile — a joy to work with,” she enthuses.
Despite being featured in bespoke-decor catalogs such as Viva Terra and Uncommon Goods, and despite some impressive current commissions — Haw Creek Forge is crafting all the copper headboards and a lobby installation for Asheville’s upscale Hotel Arras (formerly the BB&T building) — Murphy insists she’s still learning her craft. “I don’t consider myself to be an expert on anything,” she says. Instead, she’s grateful about where she finds herself now, as a maker and entrepreneur.
“Im just a welder — I don’t have an art background, so I’m fortunate to have great folks to work with. Balancing the technical and artistic aspects of each project is an intricate dance.”
Haw Creek Forge Garden Art, The Mill at Riverside, 2000 Riverside Drive #6, Woodfin. For more information, call 828-285-9785 or see hawcreekforge.com. Haw Creek’s work is exhibited in Asheville at New Morning Gallery (7 Boston Way, newmorninggallerync.com), Grovewood Gallery (111 Grovewood Road, grovewood.com), Appalachian Craft Center (10 Spruce St., appalachiancraftcenter.com), the North Carolina Arboretum (100 Frederick Law Olmsted Way, ncaboretum.org), and Heartwood Contemporary Crafts Gallery (21 East Main Street, Saluda, heartwoodsaluda.com).