Making space with the Alumni Professional Venture Fund

​Hello! My name is Sarah Towers, WUDPAC Class of 2021 and a conservator of wooden artifacts and upholstery at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. I am one of the lucky recipients of an award from the Alumni Professional Venture Fund, to support a program I co-founded and co-organized, called “Making Space: Intro to Woodworking for Conservators”. I am excited to share more about our pilot year of the program, which was generously funded by the Professional Venture Fund, the University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation, the Wooden Artifacts Group of the American Institute for Conservation​, and North Bennet Street School​ (NBSS).​

​“Making Space” was a two-week introductory woodworking class which provided an empowering, supportive environment for eight emerging conservator attendees who identify as historically marginalized from the fields of woodworking and/or art conservation. The program provided basic instruction in hand-tool and machine-woodworking, extracurricular activities including a lab tour field trip and a panel discussion and group dinner, and a small starter set of woodworking tools. “Making Space” was founded with guiding principles of financial equity and access, so students were also provided with free local housing and small travel stipends to offset personal expenses. The program was jointly organized and sponsored by NBSS, the Chairmaker’s Toolbox, and a group of wooden artifacts conservators: Sarah Towers, WUDPAC ‘21, Caroline Shaver, WUDPAC ‘24, and Trevor Boyd. 

Our program was hosted at North Bennet Street School in the heart of Boston’s North End over two weeks in mid-June of 2024. Within the world of woodworking, NBSS is widely considered to be the premiere institution for learning this craft, and we are so honored and lucky to have been able to host the program here. Our teaching team was also top notch, including our lead instructor Ellen Kaspern, and two teaching assistants who provided more opportunities for intensive learning and 1:1 instruction. One of our TA’s, Lila Reid (WUDPAC ‘25) provided a conservation perspective to the woodworking, and supplemented the exercises with case-studies to give the students context for how the skills they were building can apply to conservation benchwork. The students themselves were chosen out of a highly competitive applicant pool, and are all emerging conservators who identify as historically marginalized from woodworking and/or art conservation. Our cohort ranged from dedicated pre-program students through post-graduate early professionals, coming from all over the country and representing a wide range of specialty focuses from objects, frames, book, historic preservation/architecture, upholstery, and the still-undecided.​

​In week one, students focused on building the basics of hand tool woodworking. They learned critical skills in sharpening and tool maintenance and how to use basic tools, including paring chisels, hand planes, dovetail saw, card scraper, and marking gauge. This included a small set of tools gifted to each student that they used during the course and took home with them afterwards to continue building skills after the class. Further, students received instruction on “Wood 101,” such as characteristics of wood and wood movement in furniture making, and the most common types of joinery. In week two, students shifted focus to machine woodworking, which emphasized safety and confidence-building on a topic that can often be intimidating. Students grew their skills on the planer, jointer, table saw, radial arm saw, and bandsaw. By the end of week two, students had completed a number of practical exercises, and made two take-home projects: an oil stone box (incidentally, housing the oil stones that were used to hone the blades on their new chisels, both parts of their gifted tool kits!), and a large handled tray.

Our extracurriculars also proved popular with students. There was a field trip to tour the Museum of Fine Arts Boston’s Furniture and Frames lab, led by the head of the lab, Christine Storti. Students had the chance to talk with Christine about her work, which was another opportunity to tie together the skills they were learning in class with current projects in a furniture and frames conservation lab. Our other extracurricular programming was a highly-popular panel discussion featuring three more established conservation and historic preservation professionals: Melissa Carr, furniture conservator in private practice, Caite Sofield (WUDPAC ‘18), furniture conservator with the National Park Service/HACE, and Sophie Linnell, a Boston-based historic carpenter, woodworker, and sculptor. Panelists discussed their journeys into the field, successes and challenges, and students had the opportunity to network with them during the panel and afterwards at a group dinner.​

​We received overwhelmingly positive feedback from students after the program concluded:

“Being part of the CMT class this June was so supportive and incredible, and I think that it will shape me into being a better teacher and collaborator in the future. The atmosphere of the class and the kindness of the instructors and TAs really enhanced the experience and made this class even more valuable to me. They made me feel like learning a new skill, though difficult at first, is possible in a world where many instructors seem to try to be intimidating and gatekeeping for their own ends.”

“I had a great experience with the course! I wish it had been longer :) But actually, I think the length, content, and Ellen/Juliana/Lila were perfect. Having Lila as a conservation presence to connect the material we learned in class to conservation was great and was not something I was expecting. I think there were certain additional hand skills people in the class really wanted to learn (like inlay) but I think the reality was that the course was already jam packed and it would have been difficult to put more content in. I also really enjoyed the group activities like the lab tour and panel + dinner and actually would have been happy to have a bit more planned/ structured group activities outside of class. The fact that this program was free (plus free housing) was incredible! I would not have been able to participate otherwise.“

“There were so many highlights. Ellen was and incredible instructor and Juliana an incredible TA. I appreciated the conservation angle that Lila brought to the class as well. Everyone made it feel like a welcoming environment to learn, including my fellow classmates. It was such a good class energy which made it a comfortable learning environment. I appreciate how knowledgable our instructors were, they really made the experience special. I also appreciate Brittany and Aspen and Sarah and everyone who pulled this program together and was so accommodating and understanding and supportive to me along the way.”​

​This program means so much to me as I also identify as someone who hasn’t always felt comfortable or as though I belonged in woodworking classes, and I would have loved to have learned the basics in a safe space with students and instructors with whom I could identify. I was lucky enough to receive financial support as a pre-program student to pursue a similar introductory course at NBSS myself, and I just knew this opportunity would be equally valuable to others if we could just make it more accessible… and we did! My eternal thanks to the Professional Venture Fund and all our generous funders for believing in and supporting this project. The organizing team is committed to offering this program again in the future, and planning for “Making Space” for summer 2025 is already underway!

— Sarah Towers, WUDPAC Class of 2021