(Sound of Blowtorch) Delia Dante: It's magic.

I swear, it's magic.

I always used to say, "It's instant bling with magic powder."

And, uh, what woman doesn't like that?

Now watch, here comes the bling.

It'll start to go gold.

That was 1,550 degrees in less than 30 seconds.

I'm an enamelist.

I'm a, also a sculptor, welder, enamelist.

I fell in love with glass fused to metal, and it changed my life in an instant.

I saw it.

It's hot, so I usually just want to wear a little leather on me.

There's really no other medium like this in the world.

This medium is a layering process, many layers of glass.

So within those layers you can hot-fire, you can paint, you can silkscreen, you can do decals, you can do photography.

Anything that you do in another medium, you can do in this one.

Aren't they pretty?

Real feathers.

I was really intrigued by the idea of electroforming.

I'd heard of it about, maybe 12 years ago, and was like, "Wow, that sounds like magic."

Another magical thing that I could add to my artwork.

Casting, it always overwhelmed me because of the process.

The extensive process that it is to cast, and the expense.

With my process, um, it's a lot faster.

I'm recycling the metal.

And then I literally burn out the, you know, whatever substance it is.

If it's wood or if it's lace, I'm going to burn that out.

Then I have a hollow shell in which to work with.

So then once it's burned out, then there's this wonderful opportunity to weld it to something else or to create something new from it.

I'm really attracted to old-world craftsmanship and the detail that you can find in antique stores.

And I'm always finding really great treasures.

So within that, then I can kind of also use those and add those into the sculptures.

So it's this mixed media.

It's really exciting.

When I started TIG welding copper, it was really so that I could enamel large-scale pieces.

My first large-scale sculpture was the Medusa at Barbacoa in Boise.

And all of that is hand-hammered out of flat sheet copper and then TIG welded together.

There was one night in particular I just, I really was feeling like I was failing and I couldn't get a shoulder right.

And I don't know what it was, and I will, I will say it out loud that, that wonderful Medusa came alive and um, and it encouraged me to keep going.

And it was a connection that will forever be with me.

And, and now, it's a real part of the, of the artmaking process.

I'm a vessel in some regard to the making of the work.

It doesn't just come from me.

It does come from, from this other muse, or something.

There is more to it.

And then I get to put my helmet on and it's quiet, and it is, I'm in it.

I love adding in modern technology to very old-world craftsmanship.

It's exciting.

I had done a lot of just playing around with 3D printing, but I hadn't really done anything serious sculpturewise with the 3D printing.

I was commissioned to do the Tree of Life.

And, you know, it's a Day of the Dead theme.

The owner really wanted to have five skeletons on the, on the tree that were crawling or, you know, just doing various things.

And to make those by hand would be pretty challenging, all the bones of the human body and the skull.

So, 3D printer was, just seemed like an absolute perfect choice for that type of sculptural work.

It really took me to a place.

It was about 3,000 hours of work to create the sculpture and thinking about what legacy you want to leave behind.

Nice!

Very good.

Woman: Thank you.

Delia: Love it.

Love it.

It's a passion of mine to continue teaching art in this community.

I want people to learn about enameling.

I want people to be metalheads like me, you know?

(Laughs.)

But beyond that, I just really want connection between parents, grandparents and children in creating together and having a shared experience.

And something they can take away and remember that experience with.

'Cause there's nothing like having something in your hand, walking out with it and getting to look at it years later and saying, "Oh, I remember that time with that person."

Yeah, it's red.

So you see how red that is?

I don't know what I would do if I didn't create every day.

I hope to be welding until, 'til I'm dead, really.

If I can physically do it, I'm going to be doing it.

And I'm going to be sharing what I have to share and giving what I can back.

And I hope, I hope that will be the legacy that I leave behind, that I leave something really positive behind in this community.

I really want art to flourish here.