The Artist
Katie Ford is a metal sculptor and blacksmith based on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia’s Gulf Islands. Her award-winning work draws on a lifetime spent on the Pacific coast — from childhood aboard a whale research vessel in Johnstone Strait to a decade of professional metalwork in welding, blacksmithing, and bronze casting. Her sculptures explore marine wildlife, ocean conservation, and the raw beauty of West Coast ecosystems, hand-forged in carbon steel, bronze, and copper.
“My work centres on the quiet tension between fragility and endurance—the elegance of nature, and its relentless ability to adapt and survive in the wake of human impact.”
Early Life
Katie had a unique upbringing, deeply entangled in the marine world from a very young age. As the daughter of a whale biologist, she grew up immersed in the rhythms of the Pacific, spending spring, summer, and fall aboard the family research vessel in the waters of northern Vancouver Island — particularly Johnstone Strait and near Port Hardy — where days were shaped by the search for killer whales and other marine life.
Living so closely with the ocean instilled a deep reverence for the natural world and a lasting commitment to ocean conservation. The vastness of the sea, the quiet patience required to wait for a dorsal fin to surface, and the raw presence of wild animals left a permanent mark on her perspective.
From an early age, she was drawn to arts and crafts. She filled sketchbooks with whales and marine forms, and wrote songs to play on a homemade Kleenex box ukulele. Creativity was never separate from her environment — it was a way of understanding it, honoring it, and staying connected to the wild places that shaped her.
Education & Early Career
After high school, Katie made a decision that surprised even her — she enrolled in the welding program at Vancouver Island University without ever having struck an arc. She didn’t know the terminology, the tools, or the trade. She just knew she wanted to work with fire and build things with her hands. That instinct was enough.
She was the only woman in a class of thirty-seven. The environment was technical and structured, but whenever she finished her assigned projects, she would stay in her booth and quietly weld small sculptures. It wasn’t part of the curriculum, and eventually she was caught by her instructor. Sculpting was deemed a “waste of materials”. Still, those stolen hours made something clear: fabrication was a skill, but sculpture was the calling.
After graduating, she worked in a machine shop in North Vancouver, learning precision and discipline. She later joined Crescent Moon Forge & Ironworks in Victoria on Vancouver Island, where she was introduced to blacksmithing. The forge felt different — older, slower, more alive. She began staying late after work to experiment, shaping hot steel into sculptural forms long after her shift had ended.
Wanting to fully commit to art, she enrolled in the Sculptural Metal program at Kootenay Studio Arts in Nelson, BC, studying blacksmithing and bronze casting. The training gave her both technical depth and creative clarity.
Building Whale Skeletons
After graduating, she returned to the coast, hungry for salt air and open water. In Victoria, she worked as an artist blacksmith and built a sculpture studio out of a rusted sheet-metal shed behind her rental house — cold in winter, hot in summer, but entirely her own.
In 2018, she moved to Salt Spring Island to work for Cetacea Contracting to fabricate and assemble whale skeleton armatures for museums around the world. Many of the skeletons she helped build were displayed at the Whale Interpretive Centre in Telegraph Cove before it tragically burned down in 2025. She continues to work on skeleton projects, participating in every step — from collecting bones along remote beaches to installing fully articulated whales.
When she wasn’t building skeletons, she worked in a local bronze foundry, helping cast and finish other artists’ sculptures. Each role sharpened her technical skill, but more importantly, each one deepened her relationship to metal as both material and meaning.
Today, Katie runs a well-established studio on Salt Spring Island, with roots that run deep in the community. Her sculptures are available at Gallery 8 on Salt Spring Island, Wilson & Co. Gallery in Ladysmith, and Nova Gallery on Gabriola Island. She has also co-founded Finback Forge, crafting culinary wares alongside her friend Jeri Sparshu of Thistle Rock Forge — an extension of her love for forging that brings functional beauty into everyday life.
