This past Friday, Consuelo Lockhart brought us to her corner of Indy to aptly close out CreativeMornings’ July theme, Treasure.
A local gem herself, Lockhart is the Executive Director and Founder of the Latinas Welding Guild, an Indy-based nonprofit devoted to forging a path for Latina women in a male-dominated field. Offering courses, public workshops, and events, the LWG aims to empower and equip women with the skills, experience, and network to carve out their own rightful space in the welding industry.
On the eve of her CreativeMornings Talk, I chatted with Lockhart about how she created the LWG, what fuels her fire, and how she’s breaking barriers within the Indy creative economy–her well-spoken and iron-willed nature a testament to the future of the Latinas Welding Guild.
Kate Nevers: To give readers a sense of what the Latinas Welding Guild is, how would you describe it in three words?
Consuelo Lockhart: Grit, diversity, resilience.
KN: The LWG describes its goal as being to “empower women personally, creatively, and economically through welding.” How do you make this happen?
CL: We eliminate barriers for students who have an interest in pursuing welding–whether that interest is entrepreneurial, creative, or career-oriented. By eliminating barriers–we have no prerequisites and everything is bilingual–we make ourselves more accessible. We are trying to eliminate any reason why someone couldn’t learn with us. As long as they show up, we’re willing to invest in them.
KN: Do you find ways to integrate your intersectional identity as a Latina woman into your work?
CL: All of us are very ambitious, almost to a flaw, so we love building big things. That’s where design comes in. We’re all very proud to be able to say This was woman-designed and created. Or This was Latino-built and installed.
We’ve also had the opportunities to go and talk to schools all the way from elementary to high school. We’ve traveled outside of Indianapolis as part of Women’s History Month. For Welder’s Month, we’ve been able to showcase and talk about what we’re doing. This is important, especially in rural areas where a lot of kids don’t see anyone who looks like them. It helps them address the question: When I get out of school, what can I do? I don’t see any Latina leaders out in the community advocating or being active.
I think it was six years ago. I had done a tour with a group of students from a local middle school. A girl came up to me and said, That tour was so impactful for me as a sixth grader. And now I want to just go and see how I can be a leader for other girls. And now she’s going off to college for engineering this year.
So it’s really great for us to be able to share our individual stories. Hopefully, they inspire somebody.
KN: Why is it important that opportunities like the LWG exist?
CL: We want the Latina community and other marginalized groups that are at the table with us to know that their voices matter.
We do an interview process for people to come into the program, and it’s frustrating how many women say that they don’t feel like they have much value in the community. It’s worse that they’ve gotten there because of a cultural difference, We don’t want to bother people. And this is exacerbated for women because of the mentality that We don’t want to burden somebody with our problems so we’ll just keep it to ourselves.
So a lot of people are suffering in silence, and no one should settle or be complacent with that type of mentality. For us at the Latinas Welding Guild, we want women–anyone that we’re helping–to feel that they can take control of their lives and that they have the opportunity for a long-term career, which they may have never had before. We want them to feel proud, to be that role model for their families and friends, to prove wrong those people that have been telling them forever that they are not worth it, to know that they are worth it regardless.
KN: What does welding mean to you?
CL: Welding is the starting point that everyone comes to us for, but it opens up so many more opportunities than welding, too. We are using welding as a platform to build future leaders, mentors, and instructors. We want folks to advocate for the things that a lot of people aren’t aware of in the industry. We are truly disrupting everything, and welding is that starting point. So it really does lend itself to endless possibilities.
KN: What is your favorite aspect of welding?
CL: What I love about welding is that it’s forgiving. It is a material that if you mess up, you can always weld it back together, clean it up, and no one would know the difference.
Also, the fact that it is a therapeutic outlet. Even though you might be in a team environment, you are working very individually. So that gives the welder a sense of control. You can put on your helmet, and it’s basically your own personal time.
As an artist, I love being able to build things. It makes me feel empowered. It gives me that outlet of design that I don’t get in my everyday admin work. It does a lot for a lot of people’s mental health, and I think that’s what we’re all really happy about.
KN: What are your hopes for the future of Latinas Welding Guild?
CL: Our goal is to be able to have different hubs around the country. We would love to be able to quote-unquote “franchise” this model and be able to put other women and marginalized adults into leadership roles so that they can run the facility in their own community. Our hope is that they will be able to think about what’s important to them, what issues they want to try to solve, what they are doing to make sure that people are getting their voices heard.
We also want to move internationally. I’m Guatemalan, so I want to start other schools and facilities there and throughout Central and South America.
