Barbie the Welder- How this Mom Creator Rocks the Trades

MomsTown365

An artist - an author - a teacher - Barbie the Welder joins us for 10 minutes of absolute inspiration!

In our interview with Barbie she tells us when and why she quit her day job on September 1, 2014 and never looked back.

Here are a few points to key into throughout our chat:

1:30 Learn how Barbie was inspired by the movie "Castaway"

2:50 What it takes to make dreams happen

4:00 Barbie gives us a quick welding tutorial

4:48 Find out about her latest work

5:15 How she is working with Rock the Trades to honor the skilled trades industry.

6:30 Find out how to support the project at Rock the Trades

7:30 We ask Barbie how she is able to thrive in a male-dominated world

8:30 Barbie talks about her books teaching people how to weld and how to succeed as a creative person

Be sure to visit Barbie the Welder- and tell her Mary & Heather say hi!

Excerpt from our interview:

Mom Really “Rocks the Trades!”

Barbie Parsons, AKA "Barbie the Welder," a renowned metal sculptor, recently joined us on MomsTown365, The Daily 10-Minute Podcast for Mom Creators.

During the interview, she shares with us the moment and the movie that inspired her to start welding and how her passion for firing metal has evolved into skilled trades advocacy, writing and teaching others how to weld.

Here’s an excerpt from our interview:

(Heather)

I stumbled upon Barbie the Welder originally on LinkedIn, and she's on Instagram. She has tens-of-thousands of followers and she is dominating in a very male dominated industry. Barbie, welcome to the show. We think Barbie the Welder is like the coolest name ever!

2 (2m 0s):

I wish I could claim that I came up with that, but it was given to me.

Mary...

No, go ahead. Take claim. Take all the claims in the world! Give us a little bit of your backstory.

Barbie the Welder...

I am officially Barbara Parsons, but I go by Barbie, the Welder, I saw a movie about 14 years ago, Castaway, starring Tom Hanks. I saw the woman welding these giant angel wings in it. And even though I'd never welded before in my life and I had zero artistic talent whatsoever, I knew it's what I needed to do with my life. I needed to be a metal sculptor. And since then I have pursued that dream, that mission, that calling to be a sculptor.

I went to school. I learned to weld, I got hired at a custom fab shop. I worked there for about five- and- a-half years, learning welding and fabrication, and then bought a house for the garage and started teaching myself how to weld art after work and on the weekends.

And September 1st, 2014, I quit my full-time job to go full-time as an artist and for the last six- and-a-half, almost seven years now I have been living that dream of being a full-time metal sculptor. I wanted it so bad. I was willing to work as many hours as it took to learn the skills necessary.

Mary...

How many times have you been burned?

Barbie the Welder…

Oh! All the time. I have clothes that have holes in them from catching myself on fire on accident.

Heather...:

Tell us about your newest project.

Barbie the Welder...

I'm super excited and super scared about this because it is going to push me outside of my comfort zone, which is what I do on purpose as an artist. But my newest sculpture that I'm going to create is a collaboration with a company called Rock the Trades. It's an initiative to honor skilled tradesmen and to bring awareness to the skilled trades...

I was very blessed to be raised by my dad who never treated me differently for being a daughter. When he did the roof, I was hauling shingles up the ladder. When he was doing drywall, I was doing that and electrical. I was just taught to work with my hands and deeply respect craftsmanship from a young age. It's so important to my dad. And so it's just who I am at the core.

To hear more of our interview with Barbie the Welder, go to MomsTown365.com

Visit BarbieTheWelder.com to see more of her work, check out her books on welding and how to “be deeply successful” as an artist.

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