THE “OPUS” CREATIVE WORKSHOP

I met the hero of this story some fifteen years ago on the bank of the Velika Morava. I met him, I have to admit, in bad company: he lay on a heap, cut to pieces, in split logs, surrounded by axes and one worn-out saw. You could see he was being made ready for the fire, and the man who had pulled him out of the water told me it was oak, old oak, and that it has no great flame but smoulders instead. So the woodcutter lit his flame, and the oak went on smouldering in me.

Ten or so years later I persuaded my friend Nikica Živković, a man who knows how and understands, that we should offer a hand to this venerable gentleman and help him come out into the light. First we began to learn, and then to respect what distinguishes fossil oak. We tried to offer it a fitting form and settled on the mirror, convinced that this very frame would best hold the faith in the living picture on this side of the glass. Stretched between tool and trade, we believe that this wood has earned, above all, respect. Respect for its accord with nature, which tells you plainly that it would be wise to leave the grand interventions alone. When you work with fossil oak, forget chemistry: no stains, no lacquers! Nature gives us that instruction, and from time to come this wood is protected only by oil with wax. And while we are on instructions: when you look at these mirrors, come closer so you can look into them. They deserve it.