LAC LA BICHE - The Lac La Biche Art Club will be showcasing their members’ talents during the November 24-26 Winter Festival of Trees inside Lac La Biche’s Bold Center — but one of the club’s members already has an exhibit looming large outside the community recreation centre.
Plamondon-based artist Melanie Braund is responsible for the two-story tall, metallic feather and accompanying features that welcome visitors to Lac La Biche’s Bold Center. It’s one of the most recent pieces from the artist who has turned a life-long passion for working with metal into an enjoyable career.
Since childhood, Braund has been passionate about artwork. Growing up in Leduc, Braund assisted her dad with building wooden projects in the family garage and enjoyed drawing portraits and painting.
It was during her teenage years that she became interested in metalwork.
“I started working with metal in high school,” she said. “I went to Leduc Composite High School, and they had a really good welding class and instructor.”
After graduating from high school, Braund started as a labourer for a welding company called Weatherford Ampscot, where her father was the manager. She spent her days building pump jacks.
This experience motivated her to apply for her apprenticeship in a bid to put the required hours towards getting her welding ticket. She took her journeyman welding courses at NAIT and went to work as a fitter welder, a job that provided opportunities to experiment with metal — setting the stage for her art career.
“During my breaks at work, I would experiment with some of the scrap metal, bending and welding into fun creations — so maybe that started my curiosity into metal sculpture,” Braund explained.
In 2003, Braund built a garden bridge in which she and her then fiancé were married on. Putting her metal skills to work, Braund started bending the scroll pieces for the bridge during her breaks at work. She hid the pieces until he asked her to marry him, and then suggested they get married on it.
“I brought all the pieces to my dad’s shop, and we welded it together so it would be more sentimental,” she stated. “That was my first big creation.”
She took a hiatus from welding to start a family. She returned to metalwork in 2017 with the purchase of a computer-programmed plasma cutter, which is used for cutting through various materials, including steels, aluminum, brass, and copper. From there, she slowly upgraded the tools and machine needed to take on welding projects.
“My husband, Greg, has been so supportive of my Fine Art business,” she said. “A couple years ago I bought some metal-work machines in hopes I could expand my business to incorporate metalworks as well…everything from signage to sculpture and in between. I can’t see myself doing any other job.”
Braund’s first public art installation – and one that has been seen by countless numbers of people – is that massive 25-foot spirally feather in the centre of the roundabout in front of the Bold Centre with 16 other hand-cut sculptures around it.
In 2018, Lac La Biche County officials approached the Lac La Biche Art Club Society to come up with a concept for what was at the time an empty space roundabout.
“After hearing that the County was seeking an artistic perspective on the space, I immediately knew I needed to tap into my creative welding side,” she explained, adding that the local art club helped manage a lot of the behind the scenes work which enabled her to concentrate on creating this public piece.
The finished result remains eye-catching.
In addition to the public art installation at the Bold Centre, another project with her name on it is metal sheeting partitions at the Richard Devonian Park along Lac La Biche’s Main Street
Braund says the metal artwork is a unique medium, but she also enjoys woodwork and painting.
A metal shop inside a double-wide garage at her home filled with a drill press, grinders, a MIG welder, a roll bender and the plasma cutter is contrasted by a small, brightly-lit room inside her house with paints and canvases. Another out-building on their rural property has woodworking equipment and sculpting creations.
Braund is very active in the local artisan community. She has participated in many local art walks, shows, and sales. Some of her artworks are also on display in local businesses.
“The sales are what keeps me motivated to keep doing them,” she said.
While making items out of metal isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when people imagine artwork, Braund says she enjoys working in metal because of how long-lasting and permanent it is. The artist says the projects she enjoys doing the most are the ones that allow her full creative access.
“Just by adding heat I can manipulate the metal in ways that are exciting to me. I love fusing pieces together by welding and grinding to make everything look clean. I love using chemical patinas to change the color too,” she said. “I have to say as long as I’m doing something creative, I’m living my best life.”
The Lac La Biche Art Club’s displays at the Bold Center for the Festival of Trees weekend are part of a community wide showcase of organizations that take place at the annual event. The Heritage Society, the Lac La Biche Kinettes, KidSport, the Lac La Biche Agricultural Society and dozens of home-based business owners are once again taking part in the weekend events.
