Joop Aarts
Recently retired, the “perfect man”, also known as the wood workshop instructor, shares his outlook on life.
→ There's a meme on the infamous DAE Instagram pages that features you. It's a blurry image of yourself with the text “the perfect man doesn’t exist” above it. What are your thoughts on that and what contributed to your high reputation amongst students?
Joop Aarts: I think it's true! Perfect people don’t exist, nobody is perfect. Oh wait, you’re saying they think I am perfect? That's nice, but I'm not, you should really ask my girlfriend. I think it's from interacting with the students.
Some people can be scared their whole life when it comes to machines. I try to make the atmosphere as relaxing as possible. Nerves have a lot to do with how people react in an environment like the wood workshop. They need to feel safe here and not be scared of making mistakes, because when they feel scared, real mistakes happen. At the beginning with every students, I try to stay with them along with the introductions. I start with small talk, stop and speak about cookies and the dog, a Dutch saying. I ask where they come from, what they did before or whether they sleep well. It can be simple, but the most important part is to make this initial contact and make them feel comfortable in the workshop.
→ What brings you here in an educational institution?
JA: I liked working at Design Academy Eindhoven because the school is so liberal. Here it’s not frowned upon to wear a skirt as a man or even nail polish. I can only wish it was within the whole community, outside of the Academy too. I just want it to be normal everywhere. If you look at other countries it's not possible to be free and dress how we want. I like meeting all kinds of people: young people with new ideas are one of my favourites. I don’t like the mainstream, I like people with their own identities.
→ What’s your fondest memory of working at Design Academy Eindhoven?
JA: I don't have one singular example. Most of memories here is one happy blur. What I really did like is to build a chair with the students. Normally, students are coming in and out of the workshop at different stages of their projects. With the chair project in second year, you have a longer time with them and are able to see the whole process through, which I could develop this relationship. Especially with BA students, you work with them for four years and see how they grow as a person and also develop as a designer.
→ Now that you have retired, these relationships with student will surely be missed, what are you planning on doing?
JA: I’m planning on doing more furniture design and making them in my own studio, but before that, I’ll travel. My daughter is back from Nepal and we made an arrangement that we will go back together next year. I did it 35 years ago, the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal and now she has experienced the same. I think I can still do it so I would like to go back. It's hard because it is 5600m from sea level and you have to do it one day - a 12 hour day. It’s around 30km in distance and it’s a really hard path to take.
→ I understand you have a studio practice next to being an instructor at DAE, can you describe what kind of furniture you make and your philosophy in design?
JA: I really like Rietveld. I like simple furniture so I take inspiration from that. It can be difficult to produce but I really like furniture you can make today and the piece will still be strong enough and beautiful enough in 50 or 100 years. All of my work is made from solid wood. My favourite type of wood are nut wood, like walnut, even though they could be quite expensive. I’m also fond of using wood like zebrano and exotic African wood. I try to make my work timeless.
I don’t appreciate furniture that can be be bought and used for a short time and then be thrown away when it doesn’t serve you anymore. The conditions of which companies like IKEA manufacture their furnitures in, and the disposable attitude we have as consumers are not appropriate for the time we live in today. I like to show the craft within my work - the labour that went into each pieces. It’s important to have care for the materials we use and the things we own. It took millions of years for these materials to be able to grow and be used and in the last 100 years, we have used almost all the materials in the world. This is a big problem.
"I want to make a point that whatever you are studying, even if it’s not what you will end up doing, it’s always good and useful for something."
→ So through craft and care is your way of combating the issues you see in the world today. Were you always interested in woodworking?
JA: I was also interested in metal, but I’m better in wood. But actually, I started with social work. I used to work in Rotterdam, with young people who were using a lot of drugs. After so many years I had enough of it. I worked 100 hours a week, and in one hour everything can be destroyed again. I have a lot of respect for people who can continue doing that. This was in the 80s before I studied at DAE in the 90s. I saw DAE and thought I might like to study furniture design. But yes, you're right, my appreciation for people and care in this world is always inside me, and it will always be there, now it is through material.
I'm really happy I did social work before coming here, because you can use those skills your whole life. I want to make a point that whatever you are studying, even if it’s not what you will end up doing, it’s always good and useful for something. It’s never wasted time. It will always influence the next thing. I started here when I was around 35, which is a lot later than most but my real world experience was something to build my own woodworking philosophy on.
→. What’s your final piece of advice for students?
Some students work 7 days a week. And I believe strongly that you should at least do something different one day a week. Doing something completely different. I started doing salsa a few years back next to my studio practice and being an instructor - to enjoy other things and get new ideas. It’s not good to just focus on one thing. I think this should be said to more students, and more often. Another thing to consider is life is more than design. I stopped one year and went traveling around the world and you learn so much from it. Things would be good if people looked around the world more.