Story and photo Lou Beaumont
Like all things worth doing, learning to create from wood is a process that for the most part is fun and challenging, but it also has its fair share of frustrations. Most women are faced with the prospect of starting from scratch with woodwork knowhow, having not had the opportunity to learn it at school. In addition, when students meet with resistance when working with wood, due to perfectionist, sloppy or perhaps impatient tendencies, it can often trigger deeper and unrelated emotions that if not faced will come up over and over again, in workshop and in life.
For years, Patt Gregory has taught woodwork for women in Mullumbimby, not only filling a gap in community skills and enhancing local women's independence, but offering support and counsel as an integral part of her teaching process. Without it, many women would have pushed aside both their woodwork project and the deep-seated emotions it was responsible for bringing to the surface. As well as running the workshops from her home, Patt has been busy writing a Woodwork for Women manual.
Reflected in the instructions in her book, Patt leaves no stone unturned when teaching her students.

Patt said, 'We have all experienced trying to put together a piece of furniture or a tent from a set of very badly put-together instructions and either thrown it across the room or ended up with bits left over! It's very frustrating!

'I express every nuance when tutoring in my workshops as you never know what it is that will click with each student. Every person is different and different analogies resonate with different people. That is why my book will first and foremost be a manual, but it will also have student experiences and tips scattered through it to offer insight and support.'
Patt hopes these testimonial sprinklings will lend the necessary support to women embarking on a solo project. In a class environment, Patt and fellow students understand where and why resistance may arise, and by emulating this support throughout the manual it is hoped projects can be seen through to completion.
Patt continues, 'The book, just like my teaching, is all about the process of woodwork. People grow inside themselves during the workshops as it is so much more than the end result. It is a process of noting what's happening when things are not going exactly to plan, what comes up within you, and meeting it.'

 

Patt Gregory of Mullumbimby, is a teacher who looks forward with relish to a new year of classes.
Teahing is her passion, woodwork is her craft and women, mostly, are her students.
According to Patt, women are showing they want to venture into subjects that are not traditionally offered to them, such as carpentry and joinery. Her own initiation into woodwork was in England in 1984.
"I fell totally in love with it when I was doing a woodwork class in Bristol," she said. "I trained full time in carpentry and joinery and I learned everything from formwork to roofing, staircasing to cabinet making."
Patt's first job was on a building site where she was something of a curiosity, but after that she was selected to become a teacher of women learning carpentry with a view to entering the workforce. It was a government program, funded on the basis of student placement which Patt was part of for three of its six years.
Teaching from her Mullumbimby home began in earnest in 1998 when she got the boost she needed from the New Enterprise Initiative Scheme which launched her into teaching again. Since then around 200 women have passed through her classes.

"All sorts of women do the course," she said, "and age is no barrier. They are very different types. Some of them are executives looking for a way to relax and take time for themselves."
The courses cater for beginners through to advanced. Beginners make a cabinet, then a door, intermediate students make a table or work bench, and advanced students make whatever they choose. All tools are supplied, and there is a special session to make sure that students are comfortable with the power tools.
"Everyone has a different level of confidence and everyone works at their own pace," she said. "I set the tone for the class, where everyone is respected and appreciated, there are no mistakes, only learning experiences.
"This is more than woodwork and some lovely friendships have formed."
And some lovely woodwork is done. One of her students now makes custom kitchens, commissioned by women. For Patt, though, teaching is the thing.
"It's a real journey for me and I just love watching them on their journey, watching people's pleasure, seeing where they are challenged and thinking about how I would meet it.

 
  Byron Shire News February 14 2002