When Maddy McKeel became involved in welding, she felt that it brought her life together.
The hands-on work and art combined skills and interests where she had confidence.
“It just kind of came full circle,” McKeel said. “It’s pretty much everything I want to do, and it just worked out perfectly, kind of by chance.”
McKeel, a recent graduate of Athens Technical College who lives near Arnoldsville, designs sculptures out of metal. Her welding journey started in January 2023 and she started sculpting in November of that year.
It didn’t take her long to see success.
McKeel won silver in the SkillsUSA competition in February for her turkey vulture sculpture. This project took her four months, from November 2023 to the next February, to complete.
She had only been sculpting for about six months at that point, so there was plenty of trial and error to complete it.
“I was figuring everything out as I went,” McKeel said.
McKeel uses TIG welding, which involves electricity and gas, to achieve the smaller, more intricate details of her projects. She chooses to use her artistic values in her work, which shows off her skills.
The process of creating a project for her is to start with sketches, which she said she keeps vague in order to “let the art kind of turn out how it will.” McKeel is working on a project for the SkillsUSA competition for next year.
She originally attended Athens Tech for cosmetology from 2016-17. Her mom, Lori McKeel, gave her the idea to go into welding and she returned to Athens Tech, which she attended from 2022-23. In fall 2023, she made the president’s list with a 4.0 GPA.
“She’s very mechanically minded, and I take after her a lot in that respect,” said Maddy McKeel about her mom.
Instructor Paul Blackmon motivated her to go into the sculpting aspect of welding. She was hesitant, but was convinced to try it. She uses scraps from school and their equipment to create projects for competitions.
An inspiration of McKeel’s is Barbara Parsons, professionally known as Barbie the Welder, who is an American sculptor.
“I took a lot of inspiration from her because she’d done some stuff that I was trying to get into,” McKeel said.
McKeel’s dad, Mike McKeel, was concerned about his daughter going into a male-dominated field, but knew that she was artistic and mechanically minded.
“I’m amazed at the talent that she has,” he said.
When McKeel first got into sculpting, her dad contacted John Boyd Smith, who owned John Boyd Smith Metal Studios in South Carolina. Arrin Matthews, who took over the studio after Smith retired, gave Maddy a hands-on tour.
“And he told me, I’ve had people who’ve been in a business for 20 years, can nowhere do what she’s doing in that first five minutes she was there,” Mike McKeel said.
McKeel’s dream is to open her own shop where she can create and sell her sculptures.
“Ideally, that’s the dream,” McKeel said. “And I could do that until my hands fall off.”