Aaron Getman-Pickering

Aaron Getman-Pickering is a woodworker, designer, and artist working from his studio in Kingston, New York. He grew up in New Paltz in a family of public servants and seemed headed for a career in labor law, interning in the Obama White House before an unassuming carpentry job set him on a different path. A wood design class at SUNY New Paltz followed, and what began as an unexpected detour became a practice of its own.

Getman-Pickering spent years training with leading furniture makers and artists including Kieran Kinsella, Christopher Kurtz, and the sculptor Martin Puryear, whom he assisted over three years on a large-scale piece for Storm King Art Center. Those years building homes, furniture, and public sculpture gave him a deep technical vocabulary, from split turning on the lathe to cold-molding, a boat-building technique he encountered in Puryear's studio where thin strips of wood are layered over a form and fastened with glue and thousands of staples. The method lets him build hollow, structurally sound shapes that stay remarkably lightweight.

In his current practice, he draws inspiration from forms as varied as Danish pipes, East African headrests, architectural ornament, and industrial objects to create one of a kind lighting and furniture. The work is physical above all. Getman-Pickering describes an intelligence that emerges when his hands are busy, and his pieces carry that directness, realized one layer at a time.