A few years ago, in a Paris apartment bathed in the pale light of late winter, I sat on a bench. A bench of raw wood, very low, worn, simply placed there, holding a few objects. It was a piece by Charlotte Perriand, but there was nothing ostentatious about it.
No statement, no pose. Just a plane of joined boards, crossed by quiet veins, resting on short legs. I laid my hand on it, almost without thinking. And I felt something unusual.
There was in this piece a kind of ancient peace - a simple, silent authority. It didn’t try to please. It was there, and that was enough. That day, I remembered that humility can be a form of greatness.
I often think back to that bench - to its sense of rightness. It explained nothing, it told no story. It was the opposite of a talkative object. It welcomed. It waited. As wood sometimes does, when you let it speak softly.
I find myself seeking that today, in my own creations. A kind of elemental balance. An object that doesn’t impose itself, but quietly holds its place. A lamp that doesn’t say “Look at me,” but rather “I’m here, if you wish.”
That bench remains within me as a marker - a wordless lesson. I don’t make it a model; I don’t copy it. But it teaches me to look for the essential, without losing myself in effect.
Wood already knows all of this. It knows simplicity. It knows silence. It knows light. Perhaps all we need is to listen.