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.'