Welding artist who overcame addiction melds hope & inspiration through his creations

BLAIR COUNTY, Pa. (WJAC) — For the past year, we've had numerous stories about people struggling in these difficult times -- even those just trying to keep a positive outlook.

We've also told you about many who have confronted adversity - and found a way to keep going.

We'll tell you off the top, this is the story of a welder and an artist and how he's combined those talents along with life lessons to create works of hope and inspiration.

David Beach's artistry -- his wonders of welding are amazing and well known.

He's passionate about his creations.

“When I see a customer is emotionally moved by my design, it means so much to me and I become emotional,” Beach explained. “They’ll cry over it and I’ll cry over it because of some of the pain I went through.”

The pain, Beach admits, was self-imposed.

“I was prone to find a chemical to make me feel different than what I feel right now,” Beach says. “Alcohol was king in my life until it wasn’t.”

Beach raised by an artistically gifted mother and a father who was also a welder – an engineer, a fabricator.

But young David Beach first became a success in corporate settings, or an apparent success, but to himself he was struggling with inner pain.

“This art was the pure form of me,” Beach explains. “It was something I went to twice in my life when I’ve fallen down due to substance abuse. I value it. I think a lot of people know this because I put out on my Facebook page: Art for Recovery.”

In our pandemic times with so many struggling, Beach's story is uplifting.

His creativity, what he terms his “maniac mind,” and self-determination leading to better his life path, leading to his Fox Chapel Iron Works company.

One of his best-known works is at Tuckahoe Park and is inspired by a story he could relate to: Losing a loved one to addiction.

“And I donated a lot of my time to that project and put my heart and soul in it because I’m that statue,” Beach says. “You know it’s a man that’s losing a grasp on life, it’s a person that’s lost somebody and the words ‘love’, ‘hope’ and ‘support’ go around him because I saw that as what needs to happen a little bit more toward people addicted.”

Along with his industrial work, Beach does a number of memorials, which he terms rewarding and his skill development and educational irony.

“In the 70's nobody wanted this stuff. The trades were dead, we were going to be a financial power, we were going to be an IT power – America needs to sub this out to other countries and we've come full circle 30 years later, 40 years later or whatever to where we want the trades back.”

Beach's outlook on life comes with community involvement and is goal oriented -- even when he wanted to fix his abuse problems.

“I didn’t go to 12 step meetings to quit drinkingI wanted to get out of trouble,” Beach laughed. Teach me how to drink successfully, make this painless, tell me what I need to do, ya know I didn’t want to put any work into it. There’s work involved in getting clean and sober.”

He's often asked the almost impossible to answer question: The mental process involved in heavy metal creativity. But in terms of sharing physical skills, Beach decided to take on another role: Educator.

“I just made a sign some Sunday morning and put it out there to see if anybody wanted to learn how to weld,” Beach said. “And we’ve had 250 students in two-and-a-half years of doing this.”

As it turns out, some of those students ended up educating him.

“And with about 60,000 hours behind the helmet on all these different metals over my career with being a welding manager, a director of engineering, I'm supposed do be the guy to go to and I’ve been asked some questions that put me right back in a corner,” Beach laughed.

Beach always puts a priority in connecting with customers’ lives in making himself better.

“You know, over time as an artist you’re hoping you’re improving, but my skills have gotten better and better and I’ve found new processes that I favor to get more detail to get more impact for the customer,” Beach explained. “And it’s fun you know, you teach yourself new things, but it just keeps getting better and better, and my favorite job is my next job. I tell people that.”

Now, Beach stresses are among his best life moments, not because of the acclaimed recognition, but instead due to recent years of being clean and sober.

We talked about the life lessons and family, and that continues in his shop and Beach's son is now learning the tricks of the trade from his father.

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