Piet Stockmans
Belgian ceramic designer

"Creation is the result of activity and not of thinking. It is activity that generates ideas which, themselves, give rise to other ones. It is a process in the course of which decisive choices are made in a mysterious way. It is the automatism with which the farmer ploughs the fields, a phenomenon that can be compared to the way prayers are used, mantras recited or everyday gestures repeated. It is a quest for simplicity, peace, physical well-being."

Piet Stockmans is a Belgian ceramist and designer. From 1966-89 Stockmans worked with the Dutch company Royal Mosa, where he designed the world’s most ubiquitous coffee cup, ‘Sonja’. From 1969-98 he taught industrial design at the Institute of Higher Education in Limburg and from 1983-85 he was Professor of Ceramic Design at the Academy of Industrial Design in Eindhoven. Since 1989 he has worked as a freelance designer. In 1998 he was the recipient of the prestigious Henri van der Velde prize for outstanding career achievement. Throughout his design career, Stockmans has also successfully exhibited one-of-a-kind ceramics and ceramic installations using thousands of multiples. He has limited his palette to a white porcelain used in combination with a blue slip, however this has not limited his prolific output nor his creativity.

Images and quote courtesy of Piet Stockmans.

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