About

Every piece of wood tells a story; the story of the life of the tree from which it came. Black walnut. White oak. Black cherry, white ash, and red elm. Since 2004, Wickham Solid Wood Studio has been transforming material from hardwood trees from the Northeastern deciduous forest into unique, enduring pieces of modern furniture with edge.  Client involvement is integral to the evolution of every project, and starts at the beginning. Selecting from Wickham Solid Wood Studio’s inventory of hardwoods initiates a relationship between the piece and the person for whom it is crafted. As the tree becomes a piece of furniture, its story continues.

Owner Jessica Wickham’s evolution as a woodworker began in Japan, where she lived for five years. Jessica was inspired by the principles of traditional Japanese fine craft which now inform her design aesthetic.  In traditional Japanese woodworking, the craftsperson seeks to render her own hand in the process invisible, allowing the wood to speak for itself. The aim, as Jessica puts it, is “to discover the piece of furniture in the wood, to let the character of the material guide the design.”

Respect for the land and its bounty guides Wickham in sourcing her wood. Rather than harvest standing timber, Wickham Solid Wood Studio rescues and repurposes trees left as ‘down and dead’ by local Hudson Valley landscapers, or that have been felled naturally by storms. The logs are custom milled one at a time and dried at the Studio’s bandsaw mill in Bullville, NY.  An inventory of over 10,000 board feet of kiln dried natural edge slabs is stored at the studio in Beacon, each piece with a story to tell.

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