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Meet the Artist: Barb Siddiqui

Always something new to learn ... and teach!

A view of Barb's workshop, including bench, handtools and router station. "Anyone starting in a small shop should set up work stations, and the more mobile the better," Barb says.

Barb Siddiqui admits that having a small woodworking shop has its drawbacks, especially since her shop is situated in half of a two-car garage she shares with her landlady. "The landlady always complains about all the dust on her car," Siddiqui says. "She initially thought I should string a shower curtain across the garage. Now I have a dust mop that I clean her car with every time I finish working. Of course, I want the whole garage."

Barb laughs easily as she tells that story. The landlady in question is Barb's mother, who Barb calls the "greatest admirer" of her woodworking. "My mother is 82 years old, and she started watching Norm (Abram) on New Yankee Workshop because of my woodworking," Barb says. "Now she'll stop by the shop, watch me work, and say, 'OK, you're using your featherboards and doing it right, just like Norm.' "

The process of "doing it right" is something the 52-year-old Siddiqui takes to heart. Barb, who lives in the small town of Wenatchee in eastern Washington, refers to herself as a beginning woodworker, even though she's actively pursued the craft since the mid-1980s.

She's largely self-taught, relying on books for information and trial and error for experience. She's also a determined advocate for women woodworkers, offering support and guidance in her popular Starting Points column on this web site. Barb has also written for woodworking publications, including Woodworker's Journal and Popular Woodworking.

"Like a lot of women, I didn't start woodworking as a hobby until my (four) kids were into and out of college," Barb says. "I'm old enough where I grew up in the days of, 'Girls don't do that!' I asked the high school principal to be in the high school shop, and I was refused. A few years after I left they made the boys take home ec and the girls take shop. I had wanted to, I just wasn't given the opportunity."

Of her own experience in learning how to work in the shop, she says, "I was just shuffling around on my own. I went to the library and got a lot of books and found there was a whole world I didn't know about. It was sort of an up-by-the bootstraps approach. That's why I wanted to do the Starting Points column. The basics are what I really aim to do with that column. You just need to ask someone, 'Whoa, what am I doing wrong here?'"

"People who start with hand tools tend to learn about wood first, and not the machine," Barb says. "They learn what stresses it can take and what joinery fits each project. I think you're a better woodworker for that."

Three years ago, Barb decided to commit herself to woodworking when she sold the bookstore she owned for 20 years and fully equipped her shop. She now works part time for a bus tour company, which gives her enough time to immerse herself in woodworking.

The best advice Barb has for the beginning woodworker is to learn how to safely use the equipment. "I've seen so many posts on (Internet) message boards from people who say, 'I have the money, I'm ready to go.' And it scares me that they just take a table saw out of the box and are ready to go," she said. "It's the obligation of any woodworker to learn the safety issues for each piece of equipment."

No matter how experienced and skilled a woodworker is, she points out, there is always something new to learn, whether it be a different joinery technique or mastering an unfamiliar tool. That's also one of the great rewards of being a woodworker; you are always evolving. "After I sold the bookstore and got into woodworking seriously, my interest was learning about wood and getting good woods," Barb says. "Then as I developed my skills, I developed a serious interest in hand tools. Now I'm more interested in design. The possibilities open up like a lotus blossom. You think, 'I can do this if I just apply myself.' I consciously make the decision to not make something like someone else had built. It's made me more creative and try different joinery techniques. I don't know what's next."

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