blue heaven

Pupil gives shape to masters last wish

Piet Stockmans, just turned 80, commissioned one of his pupils to design his last abode.

The story of Casimir and Piet

The result has become a trough for what remains materially and to which the loss can lavish itself

Forward - looking,

About - living

That's what I've been doing all my life, running forward. My three brothers died around 80, my parents too, but I am trying to take a little longer. All my life I have tried to control everything myself.

That is looking forward, also to the end.I want to be cremated, how could it be otherwise when the fire was always necessary for me to create something.Still, I want to leave a sign of life.

It feels strange that precisely I am putting this in the hands of someone else. Casimir, the designer and executor of this object, graduated with me and is undeniably a top furniture maker of whom I am proud as a master.

That is why I asked him to think about a piece of furniture that will have a meaning after my death.

So this is also a way of prolonging life for a while.

Obviously I cannot do that myself, hence the commission to my pupil.

Piet Stockmans, October 2020

Casimir

When you are young and searching, you especially don't know what to find. Quite impulsively - as I still approach life - I started studying ‘industrial design’. 

It was the 1980s. At first, I had no idea whether it would suit me or what to do with it. Let's just say I gave it a shot. My interest in industrial soon paled in comparison to my fascination with design. Suddenly I knew what I was looking for: beauty. Not a hint of aesthetics, but the enchantment that speaks to a person's soul. My language in which I evoked this dimension was the form, my story the furniture. Of course, it was a process of years, a bumpy road. Fortunately, on my path I was allowed to encounter strong guides who provided me with the right knowledge at the right time and made me grow. 

One of them was Piet, he is one of my masters. About a year ago, Piet contacted me. He had a specific, uncommon question for me. A commission I hadn't received as a furniture artist in thirty years. He asked me to create a unique, ultimate piece of furniture for him. So far, no surprises. Were it not for the fact that it was his personal coffin. To be honest, you don't sit around waiting for that. Even just thinking about the death of a significant other is drastic. For the first time, the master gave no hint or comment and this throughout the process. That was at least strange to say the least, those who know Piet will agree. Piet gave me his full trust and complete freedom. 

The best thing a master can give you, for which my thanks. 

The result became neither a coffin nor an urn, but both and so much more. It is an artistic installation that at first, crude sight looks like a receptacle on trestles. Only when you look through it does the furniture reveal its true form. It is a container for the remnants of a full life, a trough for what remains materially and where the lacking can refresh itself. A final haven for the maker and his work, for Piet and his porcelain. What it says today is my materialised answer to Piet's question.

My personal complement to his sentences.

What it says is my ode to my master.

Casimir, January 2021