Jack Schicker makes beautiful wooden objects by hand from his studio on the Coromandel Peninsula: no one piece is the same. “If something is well made and the materiality considered,” he says, “then it makes a daily aspect of life just a little bit more enjoyable than its archetypal counterpart.”

Tell us what you do and why you do it.

I design and make wooden objects from a range of different timbers. It usually begins with something I would like for myself but is often out of curiosity and an intrigue of the making process as a whole.

How long have you been working with wood and why did you start?

Wood is something I have always toyed with loosely but this particular outlet began in 2019. I’d moved home after university and a good family friend had a lathe that was out of use. I got it up and running and started to teach myself...

How do you choose what to make?

Sometimes it starts as an object for myself, or I might see something and think what my version of it might look like. Friends ask me to make the odd piece too. The everyday aspect is an important component.

Tell us about your production process – you sell out super fast!

Being an after-hours project the frequency of making does tend to vary! But the intention is not to make my objects exclusive. In some ways all pieces are one-offs, since the timber I have on hand is never the same, but I balance a mix of private commissions and general releases when I can hold on to pieces long enough.

What’s next for you?

Just continuing to develop my practice and skills. There are a few ideas that are probably overdue to be made tangible, and I’d like to start dabbling in some larger-scale furniture items too. I’ll see where it takes me and try to have fun with it.

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Otis Studio
otisstudio.com