We Have At all times Been Here: Six Young Women within the Building Arts

Today, individuals should categorical shock once they see a lady on the anvil. But it’s a symptom of historic omission, not historic truth. Women, in addition to individuals of coloration and queer of us, have held a presence in constructing trades for hundreds of years, albeit unrecognized.

Through the various illustration of craftworkers within the Next Generation Artisans within the Traditional Building Trades program on the 2025 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, we sought to problem the long-held affiliation of the constructing arts as a person’s world. There on the National Mall, we may clearly see the intersectional and numerous histories of those that have formed the constructed surroundings.

From blacksmiths to stone carvers, ornamental painters to carpenters, the craftswomen featured on the Festival not solely carry ahead the information of those that have mentored them however the legacy of those that have been written out of historical past but have all the time been right here. In this text, we spotlight six Festival contributors who have been invited to signify their discipline—not solely as girls within the trades however as expert artisans.

Zoe and Isabella Riccio

Born right into a lineage formed by onerous work and craftsmanship, ornamental painters Isabella and Zoe Riccio consider their household enterprise represents extra than custom—it’s residing proof of the American dream. In the Seventies, their grandparents immigrated to the United States from Scotland with their mom and her sisters, and, not lengthy after, their grandfather John Canning based John Canning & Co., an architectural arts agency which now spans three generations.

“This trade has been passed down physically and orally,” Isabella says. “And now, so has our generational success.”

Growing up steeped within the household legacy surrounded by stencils, gold leaf, and scaffolding, Isabella and Zoe have carved distinctive roles throughout the enterprise, every taking a singular path. Earning twin levels in songwriting and digital manufacturing from the Berklee College of Music, Isabella pursued audio work in Los Angeles. When movie trade strikes halted that path, she returned to one thing older and deeper: the household commerce.

“I want to continue the legacy that my grandfather and father and mom mapped for me,” she says. “My brushstroke has several hands behind it. It feels ancestral. It makes you want to do better.”

Now a conservation technician and foreman, she consults with purchasers, runs gilding and stenciling initiatives, and manages crews—most of them girls. “On our sites, gender doesn’t matter—good work does.” Tattooed, pierced, and proudly outspoken, Isabella typically defies expectations, creating work that speaks for itself. “When we’re in those rooms looking at the work my crew and I have done, those differences are set aside.”

Zoe, after attending artwork college for pictures, now serves as a manufacturing artist at John Canning & Co. Her position bridges digital and conventional strategies by sourcing historic patterns and utilizing an industrial laser cutter to supply customized stencils. These are then hand-painted onto domes, arches, and ceilings in locations just like the Georgia State Capitol.

“People don’t realize all that goes into it,” she says. “To now be a woman restoring spaces I once wouldn’t have been allowed into, it’s empowering.”

One of her favourite initiatives concerned restoring an outdated chapel in Newport, Rhode Island, utilizing design motifs initially impressed by the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. “Bringing life back to something that was neglected—that’s what I love.” 

Hope Benson

Founded in 1705, the John Stevens Shop was owned and operated by the Stevens household for greater than 200 years. Since 1927, the store’s normal of perfection has been carried ahead by the Benson household. A fourth-generation stone carver, Hope Benson—the primary girl in her household to carve on the historic store—started at eighteen underneath the steerage of her father, stone carver and letterer Nicholas Benson. Though she initially hesitated, she was drawn to the store’s deep historical past.

Hope typically displays on the misunderstanding that stone carving is a male-dominated discipline. “People assume it’s a man’s world, but it’s not,” she says. “Most of my colleagues are women.” That stated, she embraces breaking the general public’s notion in a centuries-old commerce whereas honoring the legacy of her ancestors.

This 12 months, Hope helped full the lettering on the identical piece of slate her father started carving on the 2001 Smithsonian Folklife Festival—a symbolic second bridging generations. “Seeing the photo, it really affirmed that the shop, this work… it is so much bigger than me. And that’s why I do it.”

Through her enterprise, Hope Benson Rocks, she takes on extra experimental initiatives, mixing custom with creativity, including whimsy and private expression. Her artistry has been featured in two exhibitions (so far), in Atlanta and her hometown of Newport, Rhode Island.

Karina Roca

For Karina Roca, a Boston-area native, blacksmithing is greater than working with metallic—it’s an act of remembrance, transformation, and intention. After years in meals justice and sovereignty work, she discovered deep resonance within the forge, the place hearth turns into each alchemical and ancestral.

“What led me into my love of ironwork was not iron itself but stewarding the fire,” she displays. “My mother taught me this through cooking. There’s this intimacy with fire that she raised me with. It’s all about honoring our ancestors, their medicines and ways of being.”

In 2020, Karina determined to pursue her dream: “I’ve always wanted to be an ironworker. It was this little secret dream of mine.”

A decade earlier, she had seen a PBS program on grasp blacksmith Darryl Reeves, a founding member of the New Orleans Master Crafts Guild. Determined to be taught from him, she purchased a one-way ticket to New Orleans, enrolling within the Louisiana Green Corps, the place she now serves on the board. Upon completion of this system, she marched to Andrew’s Welding and Blacksmith Shop, which Reeves has owned and operated since 1990. “The very first thing he stated was, ‘Let me see your hands.’

Now, 5 years later, Karina continues to be taught the commerce underneath Reeves whereas pursuing a grasp’s in historic preservation at Tulane University to raised doc the tales of those that got here earlier than. Her blacksmithing work contains restoring the 1863 fence at St. John the Baptist Church, the iron cross at St. Augustine Church, and fencing on the Cabildo.

Thinking on the ancestral legacy—of each girls and other people of coloration—in her work, Karina displays, “The world is anti-Black, anti-woman. If people really knew the history, they’d know women have always been here [in the trades]. They just weren’t talked about.”

Tatum Connor

Originally from Duluth, Georgia, Tatum Connor is a senior on the American College of the Building Arts (ACBA) in Charleston, South Carolina, learning architectural stone carving. She started her tutorial journey learning computational media at Georgia Tech, however was drawn towards one thing slower, extra tactile, and deeply human. Soon sufficient, she discovered herself at ACBA, the place she fell in love with stone carving. “It opened my eyes to the longing I had of working with my hands,” Tatum says.

Not solely has the craft modified her skillset, however it has formed the way in which she sees the world. “To have my work outlive me is a reminder of how fleeting my time on earth is,” she says. “If I can make the world more beautiful with the pieces I carve, then that is alright with me.”

As one among 4 college students in her 12 months learning stone carving, and the one girl, she sees the necessity for extra expert artisans. Though the craft could seem daunting at first, Tatum encourages others to affix the world of constructing arts.

“Just do it !” she urges. “Find someone who’s willing to teach you—it might take digging, but they’re out there. Just start and practice as much as you can.”

Isabel Wood

For Isabel Wood, classical structure isn’t only a design philosophy however a method of seeing the world with intention. Originally drawn to historic preservation, she transferred to ACBA for a extra hands-on schooling. “They were actually using their hands and producing the things we talked about in preservation,” she says. “That really clicked for me.”

At ACBA, Isabel research human-scale design alongside conventional trades. “You can have a blacksmith, mason, and timber framer all at the drafting desk. You learn from their perspectives—that changes how you approach design.”

At the Folklife Festival, Isabel collaborated with Jeff Poree, a grasp plasterer with the New Orleans Master Crafts Guild, to create a watercolor rendering of the Smithsonian Castle on a plaster slab. This work highlighted how structure and trades are deeply interdependent. “The trades are classical, and, in the past, architects were trade workers. It’s important that we recognize that.” Isabel has interned at Spitzmiller and Norris creating watercolor renderings and is at the moment engaged on an city design mission within the Netherlands.

Her recommendation to younger individuals, particularly younger girls, coming into the sphere: “Draw every day, and don’t discount your work. We’re conditioned to be more submissive, but you have to know your worth. You belong there.”

Lydia Desormeaux is a program intern on the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and a graduate scholar in historic preservation at Tulane University. Her internship obtained federal help from the American Women’s History Initiative Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum.