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The Hamilton JournalNews is committed to coverage of the local community — from schools and our local history to business and news. Each Sunday, Writer At Large Richard O Jones tells the story of the people, history, places and events that make Greater Hamilton unique. Have an idea for Richard? Email him at Richard.Jones@coxinc.com.
With all the art-related activities going on around town, it shouldn’t be too surprising to see galleries and studios popping up in unexpected places.
Gary and Diana Brunsman have converted Dixie Welding on Hooven Avenue, just off Ohio 4, into Gallery of Dixie, a place where people can go to learn the art of welding and “upcycling” material.
Gary “semi-retired” last year after a stint teaching welding at Scarlett Oaks in Cincinnati, where he discovered that making art from scrap and discarded material was a good way to teach the fundamentals of welding.
“Students have a great make-up for art,” he said. “They would make things for their parents or others as a gift, so I started creating things to demonstrate the different techniques in their course of study.”
Dixie Welding has been in business at the location for about 70 years, Diana said, founded by her first husband’s father, Herman Bley. Her first husband, Robert Bley, whom she married in 1973, then ran the business until his death. At that time, she started renting the shop to Gary Brunsman.
They soon started dating, 10 years of it, but didn’t get married until two years ago because she wanted to concentrate on raising her children.
Diana, who is a bookkeeper at Badin High School, said that she had no idea that he had artistic inclinations until he started making kinetic sculptures. Indeed, she said her artistic inclinations were limited to sewing.
“I have always sewed, and have designed costumes for a local department store,” she said.
She was asked to make a pattern and then make the costume for a mascot costume, a dog named Bentley, for the Van Leunans’s department store that was once in Fairfield.
“That was a big deal for me and at that time they paid me $1,200 to do this,” she said. “I also tried to launch a series of Barnyard Pets that I designed right after the Cabbage Patch Kids came out.
“I flew to New York and talked to Fisher Price (but there was) too much competition.”
Diana doesn’t weld herself, she said, but plans on learning when she retires.
“I like putting the pieces together,” she said, “to design the flowers.”
Between them, they have nine children, “but none of them are welders,” Gary said. However, they give Diana’s son Jerrod Bley, an environmental engineer, credit for introducing them to the concept of upcycling.
But they hope Gallery of Dixie will create a lot more welders in the community, teaching the necessary skills to people with a similar interest in upcycling, even to the point of getting certification, and making the shop available to people who already know how to weld, but have neither the place nor the equipment to do it. Plans include having workshops, classes and guest instructors, such as blacksmiths, to teach other skills that can be applied to the arts.
“There are a lot of talented people around here, and we want to attract them, too,” he said.
There’s a small building at the front of the property separate from the welding shop that Diana said she hopes to turn into a place to display art in addition to the dozens of flowers, mobiles and creative fencing that already populate the yard.
“I look at things completely differently now,” Diana said. An old jello mold or an old coil from a kitchen range now look like the center of a flower. A collection of old bicycle frames can be assembled into an interesting fence, and the extra wheels can be turned into kinetic mobiles using old toys as wind catchers.
The couple confess that they have stretched the bounds of safety to pick up old hubcaps from the side of the road, and now that word has gotten out, people start dropping off old metal items for their upcycling in addition to the material they find themselves.
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