When Ruth and Jim Buezis moved to Minnesota from California in 1991, the engineer by training with a degree from California Polytechnic State University discovered she needed a toy box for her young daughters (now ages 17 through 23). “So I got some books from the library and taught myself how to make one,” Ruth Buezis says matter of factly. “I had a baby monitor on in my workshop down the basement, and I’d go there to work during nap time.”
Today, scattered throughout their Plymouth home, pieces that she has made reflect a discerning self-taught art: a coffee table, bookshelf, built-in cabinets and a special jewelry box for her daughters’ confirmations. Buezis works with all different kinds of wood. She will often create different pieces for gifts and has been approached by friends and others to custom build furniture or gift items for them.
Renaissance woman Ruth Buezis’s oldest daughter, Grace, who was just a baby when her mom started woodworking, recently returned to the home of her childhood after a two-year stint in the Peace Corps. “What I love about my mom is that she showed us there’s nothing we can’t do just because we’re women,” she says. “Sometimes my sisters and I laugh and say, ‘Wouldn’t it be weird to have a normal mom?’” Stay tuned to discover some of the “abnormal” classes Ruth Buezis teaches at Plymouth Covenant Church, coming up in our May issue.
