Shave, Plane, Chisel, Learn

Even from down the hall, the sounds coming from the Hillyer basement are impressive. There is the buzz of band saws, the rasp of files, and the high-pitched squeal of wood being shaved away by the workbench equivalent of a giant pencil sharpener. 

Inside the Hillyer Hall Woodshop, nine students are hard at work shaping small ash beams into furniture legs and turning planks of cherry and poplar into tabletops and benches.

Visiting expert Robin Macgregor Nolan ‘00 is watching closely as Elizabeth Rennert ’25 shaves down a square timber with a low-angle jack plane, a process known as chamfering. “That’s a sharp blade, so use a gentle touch,” she suggests as shavings spiral up from Rennert’s work. 

“I have a lot of woodworking experience, but none of it is classical training,” says Rennert during a pause. Taught by friends and family or during slow periods at the local farm where she worked summers, Rennert had learned to wield a chop saw and knock together a rough porch railing, but she longed to learn how to build something more refined. 

When she heard that an intensive, one-credit woodworking class would be offered during interterm—the month-long January period known unofficially as “J-term”—Rennert jumped at the chance. She was one of the lucky few who were accepted: Out of 50 applications, there was only space for eight seniors and a sophomore. 

Outside of art classes or set making for theater productions, there haven’t been many opportunities for students to spend significant hands-on time building with wood, notes Emily Norton, director of the Design Thinking Initiative (DTI), who helped develop the interterm class and was one of the co-instructors. 

While the Hillyer Hall Woodshop is technically open to all, logistically, it can be hard for students to find an opportunity to create a complicated project on their own. Tools like chop saws, band saws, drills, and jigsaws require training, experience, and supervision, so even the limited open hours have the condition that Woodshop Supervisor Drew Palmore be available and on hand. 

To create more woodworking opportunities on campus in past years, Norton and Palmore worked together to launch a few small workshops where students could spend an afternoon learning new skills. The relatively short four-hour sessions, however, meant that students only had time for simple projects, such as a basic clock, cutting board, or wooden puzzle—certainly nothing as complex as a piece of furniture. 

“In woodworking, the prevalent issue is time,” says Palmore. “If you get a piece of wood and you mill it and make it nice … that’s about all you can accomplish in that amount of time.” 

The longer interterm period gave Palmore and Norton an opportunity to teach woodworking in a more comprehensive way. Eric Jensen, director of the Center for Design and Fabrication, also volunteered to be on hand for the week. For the class' central project, Palmore chose a “Staked Valet” design, using The Anarchist’s Design Book by Christopher Schwarz as inspiration. 

“I actually wanted to stay away from chairs because you have to deal with a lot of ergonomic issues and strength issues,” says Palmore. “There’s just a lot of designed components that I think beginning woodworkers would find daunting.” 

A valet fit Palmore and Norton’s two main criteria: A piece of furniture most people wouldn’t already have and a project that beginner woodworkers would not find overly daunting. That the design—also historically known as a “gentleman’s valet” or a “suit stand” used to hold a man’s outfit after the workday—offered Smithies a chance to reclaim and redefine a formerly male-centered furnishing was a delightful coincidence. 

The woodworking “field historically hasn’t been welcoming of women and gender-expansive folks,” notes Norton. “Here at a women’s college, we can create the space to learn in a less intimidating environment.” 

In a moment of serendipity, Macgregor Nolan ’00, vice president and COO at Lie-Nielsen Toolworks Inc., joined the class to offer two days of hands-on instruction. Nolan had been visiting campus last fall when she heard about the interterm plan and offered her services. Thanks to her role at the high-end woodworking tool manufacturer in Warren, Maine, Nolan was able to bring a dozen shining bronze and iron bench planes, block planes, and spokeshaves, which she then donated to the woodshop. 

“With a couple of planes, a handsaw, and a chisel, you can make a lot of stuff,” Nolan says. “And it’s not loud. It’s very safe … That’s one of the things I loved about hand tools early on, once I realized there were really good ones out there.” 

What foreshadowed her long career in the woodworking industry? “The woodshop!” Nolan says with a laugh. 

“I ended up down here a lot because I was an architecture student,” she says. “I did a lot of art projects during J-term. There wasn’t anything formally organized like there is now … This is a weird full-circle moment for me.” 

One question Nolan often hears about woodworking is whether there is still a place in an increasingly digital-focused world for such a hands-on art. For her, the answer can be found in the reactions of Smith students as they watch one of her demonstrations. When Nolan quickly planed down a rough-hewn block into a smooth surface, students responded with delight and a round of applause. 

Reactions like those, says Nolan, happen ”because you’re creating something where there wasn’t anything. You’re transforming materials with your own hands.” 

”So is there still room for this?” she asks. “I would hope that the argument is yes.” 

That transformation process is happening all around the workroom. Working quickly beside her workbench, Eliza Berle ’27 is intent on producing enough supports to create a valet in the shape of a sheep. By Thursday, she already has four good legs—and one mistake. “I got a little file happy and made one far too narrow,” she says, laughing about the tenon she had just made. That tapered leg, designed to fit in the hole on a flat plank, had been shaved into such a tiny point that it was unusable. Berle had modified the class design (originally a minimalist valet with a giraffe head) as a gift to her aunt, who had a sheep farm. 

Berle, who had learned how to use planers and joiners in the class, says her attraction to the woodshop when she visited earlier in the fall had been immediate. “I did one project in here, and ever since then I’ve spent all my free time in the woodshop—three days a week.” 

While Berle and other students hurry to finish their projects during the weeklong class time, architecture major Anna Fry ’25 is taking her time. With nothing to do for the final two weeks of interterm, Fry plans to finish her project—an entryway table for her Friedman apartment—at a leisurely pace. “It’s fun to realize I can make things with all the tools in the woodshop. This has made it clear that I can do that.” 

Ariel Benjamin ’25, who is filing furniture legs, can already picture her future valet holding a coat or as a place for her cat to sit. Benjamin works at the DTI, and says initially the woodshop felt intimidating—but only at first. 

“I’m not afraid to operate the chop saws,” she says. “Before this week, I didn’t know what they were.” As Benjamin notes, the class has given her a boost of confidence in her skills—and not just with the machines. 

“I feel stronger, more capable,” says Benjamin. “It’s so much more than wood.”