BUILDING BRIDGES
Tetra, which caters to people with disabilities, is more than just a woodworking shop; it’s a place where clients ‘become friends.’
Deep in the sub-basement of Vancouver’s Blusson Spinal Cord Centre, a room that smells of sawdust is filled with laughter, the satisfying clap of wood on a bench, the buzz of the bandsaws.
Here, Shara Gutsche, who is partly paralyzed by a brain injury, uses a single hand to manipulate the articulated arm of an Elbo tool, used for hollowing out material on a lathe. She is making a bowl. With one hand she guides the blade so that it peels across the turning wood, from the centre of the bowl to its edge, the wood skimming away in layers, like liquid, wave after wave.
This is the Tetra woodworking shop, a 620-square-foot, fully accessible shop where anyone with a disability of any kind can come to learn woodworking using adapted tools, under the tutelage of a team of skilled and enthusiastic carvers and woodworkers.
“We don’t do it for them,” says John Scott, 83, who has been volunteering twice a week for the past eight years. “You do what you can, and if you can’t do it, we will help.”
Some of the participants have previous woodworking experience. Others, like Gutsche, picked up a tool for the first time at the Tetra shop.
Scott gives a wink and a nod in Gutsche’s direction.
“She hasn’t improved since, she’s deadly, really,” he says, jokingly.
Gutsche adjusts the face mask on her head and bursts out laughing.
“She’s like a granddaughter,” Scott says.
Volunteer Ron Bailey, 78, explains that a woodworker in the United States developed the Elbo tool for turning bowls with one hand and donated it to the group.
“The lathe allows her to use her working hand, holding the arm with the sharp tool at the end to hollow out the bowl.”
Gutsche, who suffered a life-altering brain injury at the age of 13 as a result of a hit and run, would come here every day if she could. She has been woodworking for about three years, turning bowls, building cedar chests with drawers and dovetail corners.
“I can’t stop,” she says. “Words can’t describe how happy I am … I don’t do words. I do wood.”
Her joke brings a round of laughter from Scott and Bailey, two of the four volunteers on duty today. Along with 83-year-old George Shipley, who manages the shop and co-ordinates volunteers, they put down tools, pull up chairs and unpack bagged lunches, trade jokes about each other’s sandwiches, their face shields and dust masks pushed up on their heads like a crew of construction workers.
The clients vary — some are in wheelchairs, others are autistic, others have different challenges. The instructors work with them to adapt power tools so they raise and lower or, like the Elbo tool, can be used with one hand.
On another Thursday, two weeks later, the workshop is packed. Noted Haida carver Eduard (Bones) McDougal, originally from Alert Bay, is at one of the benches, carefully sharpening a knife. McDougal is in a wheelchair after a major stroke.
He builds all his own tools, works of art in themselves, blades affixed to antlers, found objects and even the sawed-off end of a hockey stick.
Today, McDougal has two handcarved wooden ovals, which will become a rattle, set up in a vise.
“We can’t help him with the work. He’s the artist. But when he brings in a piece we can help him get it clamped down. We take instructions from him,” Bailey says.
“That’s right,” says McDougal with a broad smile.
“The people who come here are more than just clients,” Bailey adds. “They become friends.”
The buoyant atmosphere proves his point — when the bandsaws stop, the sound of laughter and enthusiastic, focused conversation rises.
Also here today is Martin Granger, who comes in from Coquitlam “as often as he can,” he says.
Granger is working on a complicated oak table with a drawer that will be a gift for his father. Granger, a former apprentice cabinet maker, suffered a brain injury when he was a teenager and uses a wheelchair.
“This shop is so great. It’s not arts and crafts, or painting pictures just to do something. It’s real work. More manly,” he says, jokingly.
Volunteer Jerry Hurn, 70, says he loves the wood shop.
“I get to do woodwork, which I like doing. It’s a real social thing as well, with the other instructors, the clients. People love to be here.”
There’s a hitch, though. The wood shop functions best when they have an instructor-client ratio that is one to one or one to two. Shipley, Hurn, Scott and Bailey say more woodworkers are needed as instructors and volunteers.
“One of our guys just had a hip replacement. We’re getting old,” Hurn says, laughing.
They could also use a wood sponsor, but for now clients pay a $10 drop-in fee, which covers the cost of basic woods to create coffee tables, stepstools, birdcages, Adirondack chairs.
Marney Smithies, 45, has used a wheelchair since she had an accident at 16. Today she is woodturning a pen — and she’s skilled enough to instruct other participants in wood-turning. She first came to make picture frames for her paintings, and she quickly got hooked. Having access to a fully accessible workshop has made a huge difference to her.
Smithies and Bailey have become lifelong friends — they go to woodworking guild meetings together, Bailey picks apples from Smithies’ orchard.
Scott opens a box to show off a collection of handcrafted toy trains.
“We have one fellow, he’s autistic, and all he does is make trains,” says Scott, picking up a wooden train engine and spinning the wheels.
“He was trying to do it at home, but now he’s learned to do it and the finish and quality is there. They’re very nice.”
Judy Doll, 74, a former shop teacher in Burnaby, is another regular volunteer. She believes everyone could benefit from the esteem-building that comes from mastering a skill. She became handy because she had to, after her father left the family.
“I was just a kid, but I figured out that if the light switch wasn’t working over here, I could see how the light switch over there worked and fix it. So, I began to do that.”
Figuring things out gave Doll a sense of accomplishment and pride that not only helped her overcome a difficult family situation, it also helped her figure out her place in the world, and how to help others.
After retiring from teaching at 71, she began to help out at the shop.
“These are the creme de la creme of people because they are willing to come here and they are willing to learn and to try.”
One client in particular stays with Doll.
“He was a beginner and he came right in and said he wanted to make a chair.”
A chair, Doll knew, is not easy.
“I said, ‘let’s make a birdhouse.’ He made that. Then made a bird feeder. Then he made a shelving unit and a spice rack for his mom. Finally he was ready to make the chair. He made that. He makes puzzles. Now he wants to make an Adirondack chair, and I think he will.”
The workshop is part of Tetra, a national non-profit organization that brings skilled volunteers together with clients with disabilities, either to participate in community activities or to create custom devices that will help them overcome barriers to participation.
Ruby Ng, executive director of the Disability Foundation, said Tetra is celebrating its 30th anniversary and will be honouring volunteers like Shipley, Doll, Bailey, Scott and others who have been innovating adaptive technology to help the disabled.
To celebrate its 30 years of helping others, Tetra is showing a gallery of videos that showcase some of the innovative solutions Tetra volunteers and participants have come up with, such as a bocce ball launcher, a collapsible shoe horn, an extended toenail clipper, and a portable travel wheelchair ramp.
The Tetra society holds monthly meetings that members of the woodworking group as well as university engineering students, biomedical students and other skilled volunteers attend to bounce ideas off each other, and dream up innovations. Ng says the meetings are “quite magical.” With the advent of technology, more and more can be done to erase barriers.
“It’s a transformative time,” Ng says. “You’ve got people keyed up by the challenges and the innovations. It’s community coming together.”
But in the basement of the Blusson Centre, the hope is for more human beings.
“We need more volunteers with woodworking experience,” Bailey says. “Then we could be open three days a week.”
“That would be nice,” says Gutsche, wreathed in smiles. “I would come every day if I could.”
I get to do woodwork, which I like doing. It’s a real social thing as well, with the other instructors, the clients. People love to be here.