Sun Valley Home and Design / Fall 2005 / The Master Next Door

The Master Next Door

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Craftsmen Profiles: Sun Valley is not commonly known for its down-to-earth quality. No surprise given its outward appearance, yet, actually, it is down-to-earth. Very hands-on. The thing is, these hands are the quiet ones, usually not the ones with standing appointments for manicures. Meet the hands (and their owners) that garner calluses and broken nails to create the fine touches in our environments. Then, take a closer look at the person next to you at the market. Say hello to a master.

Mary Garrett

When you meet Mary Garrett, it’s hard to get your head around the fact that this handsome blond woman sets steel for a living, that she is an ironworker by trade and union definition. Her craft is precise,unforgiving, risky . . . and, if done correctly, usually goes unnoticed.

Garrett’s most visible work is the fabrication she does for local sculptor Bob Kantor, whose colorful kinetic sculptures can be seen mid-Valley alongside Highway 75. It’s also the work that most challenges and excites her. Collaborating with Kantor to develop the shapes, correct the balance, and assemble the sculptures is a creative outlet for Garrett, whose work is more often based on precision than on an exchange of ideas.

Like most Idahoans, Mary Garrett is a transplant. She moved here from Michigan at the urging of her brothers, both tradesmen who had traveled through the state and decided to put down roots here. Since then, through significant sweat and serious determination, she has established herself with an attractive iron shop, two employees, and an office at her family compound in Shoshone.

Upon graduation from high school, Garrett tried on a number of jobs, including a short spell as a bank teller. Serving the public in pantyhose proved far too prissy for this fiery woman, however. Eventually she landed a job at a local cement plant and, after a few years, boldly joined an apprenticeship program to become a millwright. As part of that program, she learned how to weld—and immediately fell in love with the process.

Garrett eagerly watched and talked with the men who were experts at weaving metals together. The first woman to be involved in the apprenticeship program, she remembers the men being kind and sharing ideas about what they did to make their work more efficient. Yet, despite a supportive atmosphere, there were skeptics—and Garrett was never given any leeway because she was female. She knew she had to prove her skill and, at times, her lack of fear.

After ten years at the cement plant, Garrett was itching to do more work with steel. She set her sights on becoming an ironworker even though she knew the apprenticeship program was highly competitive. When she arrived for orientation, the hall was filled with some 500 people hoping to be chosen. Just four or five of them were women. The trainer warned the group that only a third of them would survive the training process: half would be eliminated by the drug test, and others wouldn’t be able to stomach the physical risk of balancing on a narrow beam suspended hundreds of feet in the air.

After navigating her way through orientation, Garrett was selected as an apprentice ironworker. The day she was to begin, she went directly from her night shift at the cement plant to apprentice school.
Needless to say, union guys don’t always welcome rookies, especially when the rookie is a woman. On one of her first jobs, Garrett remembers the foreman turning to her and saying, “You might as well go home now, lady,” directing her attention to a steel beam that was several hundred feet in the air—the beam she would have to negotiate. Determined to keep the job, Garrett walked out onto the beam, locked on, and completed the day’s work. That earned her a nod and a “Not bad!” from the foreman.

The work she does today varies widely, from setting large structural steel beams for buildings to the more delicate process of fabricating fireplace screens. She is proud of her collaboration with artist Bob Kantor, and shared with me some photos of a colorful, kinetic mobile that was recently placed in the Napa Valley Vintner’s Community Health Center. When asked whether she aspires to create her own sculpture, she smiled and confessed that she has sketches of works that she would like to build someday. And, no doubt, this strong, determined woman will manifest that wish before very long. >>>