Joel: Beth, my friend. How are you?

Beth: I'm good.

Joel: How nervous were you about this?

Beth: A little. Yeah.

Joel: You're going to do great.

Beth: Yeah.

Joel: So, Beth, you are well, what's your, what's your formal formal title in this program?

Beth: I am the Fine Furniture tool crib attendant.

Joel: And what does that mean?

Beth: I run the shop, so I do machine maintenance. I do purchasing. I assist Sandra wherever I can. I think of myself as Sandra's assistant as much as anything else.

Joel: And how long have you been doing it?

Beth: For about a year.

Joel: You are also a graduate of Fine Furniture?

Beth: I am.

Joel: When did you graduate?

Beth: I graduated in 2015.

Joel: And what was your life 2014 and before? Was it furniture making?

Beth: So I was an ESL teacher in Vancouver for about seven years. Before that I was a community organizer.

Joel: Really?

Beth: Yeah.

Joel: Well, that's fascinating. What communities did you organize and how did you organize them?

Beth: Our focus was organizing the multiracial working class in Vancouver.

Joel: Really?

Beth: So I did a lot of work around public transit actually, riding the buses, talking to people. And then I also did some work around undocumented migrant workers rights.

Joel: Where I'm from the vast majority of undocumented workers are from Latin America. Where are they from in Vancouver?

Beth: I think in Vancouver, it's very broad. It's all over the world. I specifically was working with a group of Mexican painters, actually, whose employer had ripped them off and called immigration on them.

Joel: Do you speak Spanish?

Beth: I do.

Joel: Oh, really? Do you speak any other languages?

Beth: A little bit of French, little bit of Tagalog. Filipino.

Joel: How did you learn Tagalog?

Beth: I was involved in some community organizing amongst Filipino migrant workers as well, and spent some time in the Philippines learning about organizing communities.

Joel: I better change the subject, otherwise this entire interview is going to be about that. But I have many questions when we finish the interview. So community organizer, ESL teacher, why did you make the shift to find furniture in 2015?

Beth: Some of my community work was folding, we were kind of wrapping some stuff up, and me and my partner moved to Victoria, and I was ready for a change, and I couldn't find work as an ESL teacher here. It's just not the same demographic. And I had in high school I had done furniture making.

Joel: Where'd you go to high school?

Beth: Van Tech. In Vancouver. And I started thinking about what else I'd like to do, and I found this program, and I was like, that's it. I'm going to see if I still love it as much as I did when I was 17.

Joel: And what was the verdict?

Beth: Absolutely.

Joel: Was Sandra your teacher?

Beth: No, she was, she actually, I did the Women in Trades program, and Sandra was my teacher in that program. And then when I came in here, it was still Cam and Ken.

Joel: What was that experience like taking this program under Cam and ken versus now us taking it under Sandra? Differences, similarities.

Beth: I think there's a lot of similarities. I mean, the three of them share just, like, share a passion for everything furniture. And Sandra has just done a beautiful job of making it her own and also just also maintaining the core of what that program has been for 30 years before she took over. Sometimes friends of mine, we joke, we graduated before Sandra, we joke about taking the program again with Sandra because she has just come up with such beautiful projects.

Joel: Why did you choose wood as opposed to metal, ceramics, glass? I mean, there's so many different mediums that you can get into.

Beth: Yeah. My dad gave me my first saw when I was ten, and for a class project, I built a log cabin out of dowels that included chiseling out, sawing and chiseling, and I feel like he pushed me in that direction. And when I was in high school, I started taking woodworking in grade nine, and by grade eleven I was taking as much of it as I possibly could. It was the only thing I loved about high school, really, and I had a fabulous teacher, and sometimes it's just how we end up there.

Joel: Why didn't you go into it after high school?

Beth: My dad passed away my graduating year, and it just wasn't in me to pursue my dreams at that time. And I ended up going to university, and I kind of used university to let me do the community organizing I wanted to do for many years. But I do sometimes have regret about that.

Joel: That was going to be my next question. Do you regret not getting it into it sooner?

Beth: Yeah. And partly I had my shop teacher, who I adored told me I was too smart.

Joel: Yeah, that's interesting. Too smart to be in trades. So looking back on that, as a person who's now, their career is in trades, how do you feel about that comment and that bias, which I have a hunch is probably shared pretty widely across society? That trades are for not the smartest people.

Beth: Yeah. I think he thought if I could make it in the academic world, that that would give me a better future. A we're talking about a working class school here. Mostly raised poor kids. Right. And I think he thought, if you can make it, you should. And that program did give other kids an option to go into cabinet making very young. Like, I had friends who became cabinet makers out of our program. But as you know, it's not a well paid job. But the longer I'm in this, the more I see our the more I see the intelligence in trades, it just looks different. It just looks different. So we have abilities to see things in 3D, to manipulate things, to dream up new things in a way that people in the academic world can't. Literally can't.

Joel: Laurence and I were discussing during his interview a related topic, which is, why are the lawyers paid so much more than the woodworkers? Why do you think society doesn't value that sort of intelligence that you just described as much as it values more academic or financial intelligence?

Beth: I think it's the class system. The class system benefits from undervaluing the production of what we need to live. How would they make a buck if we were well paid? And that's 80, 90, depending where you cut off percent of us. So if we were well paid, the rich wouldn't be making any money.

Joel: It makes me think, because your shop teacher, I assume, wasn't rich.

Beth: No.

Joel: But he shared that bias.

Beth: Yeah.

Joel: So it makes me think, has it been sort of an establishment of this cultural hegemony where even people like you said, who don't benefit from the class system have adopted that bias? Because it's so deeply inset the culture.

Beth: It is deeply inset in the culture. And there is a way, my partner actually is a lawyer, and when I go to her functions, I often have lawyers tell me, “Oh, man, like, my grandfather was a woodworker, and blah, blah, blah.” They tell me very long stories about their grandfathers. Pretty often,

Joel: You want to stab yourself?

Beth: I nod, and I walk away as quickly as I can. But what I find is they say, “If I wasn't a lawyer, I'd be a woodworker.”

Joel: I hear that, sister.

Beth: And I think, oh, is that how easy it looks to you? Is that how easy it looks to you that you assume that you could do what I do? But that's not actually true. What we do takes skill. It takes training, and it also takes ability.

Joel: See, I interpret that totally differently.

Beth: Okay.

Joel: As that person who approached you at that cocktail party. Because for me it wasn't, and I'd love your opinion on this. I'm not just talking to hear myself speak, but I'd love you to tell me what you think of this theory or this idea. For me, it wasn't, oh, I want to be a woodworker because it's easier for me. It's I want to learn woodworking because something about what I do for a living doesn't feel substantial. And woodworking, and I just like wood. But it could be metalworking, it could be glasswork. Something about creating a material object feels so much more substantial and meaningful than being a lawyer.

Beth: Yeah. And I hear that from lots of friends of mine who have office jobs or intellectual jobs or even union organizing jobs. And it's interesting. I think maybe where I get caught up is that they don't consider the challenges and the realities of what we do when working in industry.

Joel: What are those challenges and realities?

Beth: Being poorly paid, often being treated badly, our work not being respected to the extent it should be, and how just the kind of the stuff we're talking about that if you're in the trades, you're not as smart and you're not as successful as if you pursue lawyering.

Joel: It's like diletantism. It's like, I want to dabble. I don't actually want to deal with the more difficult aspects.

Beth: They just don't even know what those aspects are. They're not really interested because it's a dream. It's a dream, and when it's your reality, sometimes it's hard to swallow.

Joel: Right.

Beth: That's nice for you.

Joel: One thing I was thinking, there's also just the reality of your body.

Beth: Yeah.

Joel: Sitting in an office, typing out emails and answering the phones. Yeah. There's carpal tunnel, but generally you're going to physically be okay, but separate and apart from the pay and everything else as you said, this work takes a toll on your body that office jobs don't.

Beth: And that was really my experience going into it. I was shocked to see how our bodies were treated as disposable. So there were guys I worked with who were popping T3s to be able to come to work that day.

Joel: What are T3s?

Beth: Tylenol threes. Yeah. Because their backs were so bad. And so the culture is just brutal. Some of the culture is just brutal. I'd go into work and they'd be popping T3s and then they'd say, “You can't ask for help to move a piece of three quarter MDF, a full sheet. You have to do it by yourself. You have to get it on the panel saw yourself, you have to cut it up yourself.” I'd be like, “Dudes, is it worth it?”

Joel: Was this at cabinet shops in Victoria?

Beth Yeah.

Joel: Was that experience you just described exceptional or common for a cabinet shop?

Beth: I think it's pretty common. I hope that it's changing now. I mean, this is a while ago, but there is kind of that attitude of you do what you have to do and you destroy your body in the process.

Joel: And that, sorry to lead you, but you're just blowing my mind, I love this stuff. And that is sort of one of the foundational aspects of capitalism, is disposable human bodies. To sacrifice in the service of amassing more capital.

Beth: Yeah.

Joel: Well that makes me really sad for my classmates.

Beth: Well, I'm painting a bit of a grim picture here, and it also depends where you go. Right. Like I unfortunately had some bad experiences in industry, and it's really important to me now that we talk about where's the line, right? What is acceptable in industry and what is not? And I wish that I had walked away from some of those situations much sooner than I did. And I do bring that perspective of having worked in this industry versus being a furniture maker who designs and builds for private clients.

Joel: Where is that line for you between what is and what is not acceptable?

Beth: I think that if I was in those situations again, I would say thank you, but no thank you. I'll be going somewhere else. But at the time, I was desperate for work, and also, as a woman, it is harder to get hired. My friend coming out of that program finished, we finished top of our class. She wouldn't even get callbacks as soon as they would literally, this was 2014, so not that long ago. They would say “what can you lift?” That was their first question. “What can you lift?”

Joel: Is that changing? Because interviewing my classmates, a sentiment which I'm very happy is as widespread as it is, but I'm a little surprised it's as widespread as it is, is how much both men and women in this class appreciate you and Sandra as female leaders in the field. So from my perspective, which is just this classroom, that seems like it's changing, but I don't know if that has yet to filter into the outside world of industry.

Beth: Yeah. I mean, I've been out of industry for about six years. I hope it's changing. I think it is changing. I think it's very slow. I think it takes a toll. Took a toll on me, that's for sure. And I also think that in our program, Sandra, and to me, to a certain extent, in a different way, work hard to establish that it's not to be intentional. Yeah, it's intentional. It's not necessarily the default of the people coming in.

Joel: Yes. I think I agree with you 100%. The fact that they've maybe embraced it and that's not their default is even more hopeful.

Beth: Yeah, absolutely.

Joel: Because I agree it's probably not the default, but the fact that you have these two strong, talented women leading the program, and you have all of these guys being like, “Oh, it's so nice having them in charge.”

Beth: Yeah.

Joel: To me, that speaks even more in favor of the next generation.

Beth: Absolutely.

Joel: Than if they were just raised on that from birth.

Beth: Yeah. And you do see that transfer. Like, it is hopeful. This year. We just have a beautiful class. We have a absolutely. And we do. I mean, every single person in this class I just adore, and it is hopeful to see that that is who is going out into the world in our trade. I mean, what a beautiful culture we've created in these ten months together, right?

Joel: When, when you were…Gosh I don't want this interview to be an hour. When you were a student, what was your best experience in the class? An experience can be whatever you want it to be. A project, a homework assignment, a great day in the shop.

Beth: I loved the design-it-build-its.

Joel: That's almost everybody's favorite.

Beth: Yeah. And I have very fond memories of my working on my design-it-build-it, and I adored Cam, and there were a couple of relationships in that class of friendships I made that were with people I wouldn't have necessarily come into contact with in my other daily life. And that was very sweet.

Joel: I struggle… So I have friends who I know are going to look at this podcast, and I've spent the last couple months telling them how one of the things I love the most about this class is its diversity and that I'm meeting people that I never would have met. I mean, Dustin's a former rock star there's Lesley Laurence lived in England. And Sinead. The list is endless. And how incredibly diverse people's backgrounds are. And I know I have friends. I'm thinking of one very good friend in particular who's going to look at the website and she's going to say, “What are you talking about? Your class wasn't the least bit diverse.” Which I guess is true from that perspective. What is your take on that, I don't know if it's a contradiction, but that aspect of the class. And on the one hand, for me personally, I feel like the class is very diverse. On the other hand, I get her point that looking at it in a different lens, it's not diverse at all. I guess what's your opinion on that? How do you feel about that? Am I way off base?

Beth: I mean, I think both perspectives are legit. It's not a racially diverse or racialized people diverse group, so I think that's legit. But I do see what you're saying, and something I've been thinking a lot about lately is neurodiversity, this kind of idea that we all think in different ways and how increasingly we're coming to understand the strengths of neurodiversity. And I wonder if the trades is a place where those of us who don't always excel in an academic world can find success and satisfaction. My partner says in a few years, no one's even going to talk. It's going to be like the idea of racial minorities. It's just going to be a term we don't even need to use anymore, it's a term we don't use because it's ridiculous. Of course we're all neurodiverse.

Joel: So interesting.

Beth: Yeah.

Joel: Okay.

Beth: So what I'm trying to say is neurodiversity is everywhere. And I'm not sure how I'm getting my point across here, but there's something about, maybe there's something we all share that brings us here and that we're discovering here together. That could be as much about what was hard in other areas of our lives and why in this shop with these people, we find the satisfaction and the beauty of building. I mean, it is just, you know now, you know now what that is, right?

Joel: Making a note because there is a question I want to ask you off mic, about this topic. Okay. What was your most frustrating or dispiriting experience when you were a student in this class?

Beth: When I was a student?

Joel: Yes. Or as an instructor, if you'd rather answer from that perspective.

Beth: I think as a student, I had to confront a lot of my own shit.

Joel: Can you talk more about that?

Beth: I could become really frustrated. I had to come up against a bunch of internalized stuff that I wasn't good at it or I couldn't figure it out. So that was very interesting and very challenging. And I think everybody coming into this program does that. And I think as a tool crib attendant, it's interesting. It's similar. When I started, I had to work really hard to kind of contradict the internal, especially internalized sexism that told me I couldn't do this job. It's unusual to have a woman do this job. It is. And so I would say some of the hardest days were the days where that got the better of me.

Joel: Did that get the better of you, sorry to interrupt, but did that get the better of you because of you or somebody else or both?

Beth: Both. I mean, there have been, including with this year, there have been interactions where I was challenged or underestimated. That happens a lot. And I have to work really hard to be relaxed about that and to connect with the human behind the mistaken idea that I can't do this job because I'm a woman, or that they would be better at it because they're a man, or that they need to help me or they need to fix my problem or any of those things. So I work really hard to stay relaxed there, to connect as a human and to continue my process of learning to do this job well and being a resource for the students.

Joel: I'm fascinated by that process. So I'm a male student. I walk into your tool crib and I make a comment or I display a behavior, and it's clear that I'm underestimating you or devaluing you because you're a woman. What is your strategy?

Beth: What's my strategy? I'm still developing that. I'm learning to call it out in a gentle, kind way. Somebody recently said to me that what they use is “what makes you say that?” And I think, in a way, that's great because it pokes a hole, right? It pokes a hole in the barrier being constructed between us to say, like, “Oh, why are you saying that? What makes you think that?” Yeah.

Joel: “Why do you feel that way?”

Beth: “Why do you feel that way?” And it allows us to try to connect across that and to correct the mistaken… If there is or maybe there's a misunderstanding or maybe there's a mistaken idea there.

Joel: I think that's brilliant. I'm going to steal that. It's brilliant.

Beth: Yeah.

Joel: Let's see. What do form and function mean to you? And has this class, either in your capacity as a student or as an instructor, changed how you feel about those concepts?

Beth: In my own work, I tend to go for form and then push as hard as I can to have it still be functional.

Joel: Why form first?

Beth: I just get an idea in my head and that's what I want to do. And then I figure out, how thin can I make these legs?

Joel: Did this class, I know this is a very simple question, did this class change how you feel about art and trade?

Beth: Absolutely.

Joel: How so?

Beth: It put it back on the table for me. It was something that I loved and that I gave up. And to have it offered to me as a possibility again by people that I loved and respected changed everything for me. And that was Sandra, and that was Cam, and that was Ken. And their ongoing support, it's been now like, eight, nine years, has changed my life.

Joel: Has your family… Did they notice the change? You said it changed your life. Do they notice the changes in you that have been engendered by this experience? Or are they sort of subsumed into just larger life changes that happen naturally no matter who you are and what you're doing?

Beth: Most of my family is in Vancouver, so they don't see the day to day here of what I do. I think they actually don't quite get it. My mom's been very supportive. My partner's incredibly supportive. When we had a young child, I would try to steal an hour a day in my shop and then I would take care of our young child for the rest of the day. And that hour in the shop was the little bit of my soul that I had to continue feeding that felt like, there was no way I could stop and still be me.

Joel: Another really easy question. What is art?

Beth: I think art is making, and I've really come around to the process over the outcome.

Joel: Interesting. Can you talk more about that?

Beth: I mean, I think what we do here is art, and sometimes when I try to explain to people what it means to be a furniture maker, it's a lot like being an artist, especially in our trade, where you can sometimes be the starving artist, even to do the thing that you love, but you get to create. And I still think of it as, like, this little, it starts as a little seed inside, and you do the design, you do the drawings, you do the build. And once you have that build in front of you, it's like a little piece of your soul that everyone else can see. And there's nothing quite like that process. I'm hooked.

Joel: Me too. William Morris says that art is the pleasure we take in our labor.

Beth: Yeah.

Joel: What do you think of that?

Beth: Absolutely. And there's something that I've, something that changed for me through being in the trades is just a delight and appreciation for what my body can do. And I now have this feeling I just have this feeling of what I can do is amazing. What I can do is amazing. And it's invisible to other people.

Joel: Is it possible to be a fully realized artist in 21st century neoliberal capitalist…?

Beth: What do you mean by fully realized?

Joel: That you can make art in a way that is authentic, genuine and uncompromising to you. Whatever your vision is, that you can really be an artist who makes art that they believe in wholeheartedly.

Beth: I think we're creations of our time. I don't think we'll ever be free of the system around us. I think it's in everything that we do. I don't think it means it's bad or inauthentic, but I think capitalism creeps into everything that we do.

Joel: All that is solid melts into air. What is the first thing you would make if you had no monetary or environmental constraints? You had all the money in the world. And if you wanted to make something out of elephant ivory without feeling bad about it, you would.

Beth: I've been building a dining table for myself and my family for the last eight years in my head.

Joel: What does it look like?

Beth: It changes.

Joel: What does it look like today?

Beth: It's kind of Shaker. It's probably walnut. If I was unconstrained, probably walnut. It's just got that Shaker simplicity and beautiful lines. And someday I'll make it.

Joel: Why haven't you made it yet?

Beth: Honestly, I haven't been able to settle on a design that I feel satisfied with.

Joel: If I asked you to make something sacred to you, either theistic or atheistically sacred, what would you make?

Beth: I actually think that everything I make is sacred.

Joel: Why?

Beth: Because it's in the making. I mean, I remember saying to somebody, you know, I can be making cabinet boxes. It doesn't matter. As long as I'm making something. There's a part of me that is satisfied by that.

Joel: That's a great answer. Now for the most controversial question of this project. You only have three tools to use for woodwork for the rest of your life. What are those three tools?

Beth: A Dozuki saw.

Joel: What is that?

Beth: It's the Japanese saw.

Joel: Oh, the one way saw?

Beth: Uh huh. A hand plane and a chisel.

Joel: Good choices. What sensual memory of the shop will stay with you the longest? Sight, sound, smell?

Beth: Smell. I still walk in here in September. I guess I come here in August. And that first smell of the shop, there's just something inside me that relaxes and feels like all is well. I'm in the right place. There's nowhere else I'd rather be.

Joel: My last question isn't really a question. It's what haven't asked you about that's important to you as a maker, as a teacher, as an ex-student, that you would like people who listen to this project to know about you or this program.

Beth: I think this year, for me, has been a really amazing year. I mean, the first year on this job, I did start in a previous year, but I wasn't able to complete the year. And Sandra's support has been phenomenal, and her ability to believe in me and in everybody around her really has allowed me to learn more than I ever thought possible. So when I came in here, I had put together my own machines in my own shop. I bought all secondhand machinery, took it apart, put it back together. But here, I get to tear things apart and put them back together. And the more I do it, the easier it gets. And that's been just an amazing process to learn how to do that.

Joel: Yeah, I lied. I have another question.

Beth: Yeah.

Joel: What is it about Sandra that is so amazing? Because I've been a student, I've been a teacher. most of my life I've been a student and or a teacher. You, me, every single student in this program just cannot say enough good things about her. What is it that's so great about her? Because I've never met anybody else like her, and I don't think any of us have.

Beth: Yeah. Sandra is fearless when it comes to making things. It's like Sandra sees a new technique, a new tool, and she immediately, her first thought is, how exciting. I want to learn how to do that. Whereas, you know, my old first thought is, “Oh, damn, that looks hard. I have no idea how that works. How will I ever learn how to do that?”

Joel: That's still my first thought!

Beth: For many of us, we have that discouragement. We have that discouragement. And Sandra has this hopeful, open attitude towards all things furniture and building, and she manages to kind of transmit it to us and encourage us to see things the same way. It's an incredible gift. I mean, she's in the right place, in the right job. Right.

Joel: What you just said really resonated me with me on a really deep level. I wonder if it is that hopefulness, because me personally, I don't find a lot of hope in this world. It's kind of a dark place we live in between politics and the environment and the economy, and to find that sort of hope, to me, is truly, not only inspiring but like, almost revolutionary. I mean, is that the is that the secret sauce?

Beth: Yeah, I think so. I mean, if we could take that attitude to everything we do, what a world we would live in.

Joel: Yeah. I can't think of a better place to end. Thank you, my friend. This is fabulous.

Beth: All right.