It began with twelve apprentices in a vocational program funded by the European Union. Over the next decade, it became something far larger — a quiet revolution in which 350 Cambodian artisans learned an ancient craft, and a workshop discovered that the most skilled hands often belong to those the world has overlooked.
Twelve Apprentices, One Mission
In 1998, when Eric Stocker arrived in Siem Reap, Cambodia was still emerging from decades of devastation. The Khmer Rouge had systematically targeted artisans and intellectuals. Traditional crafts — lacquer, gilding, polychrome painting — had been nearly erased. The EU's vocational training program was an attempt to rebuild what had been destroyed, and Eric was invited to lead the lacquer component. He began with twelve young Cambodians, most of whom had never held a lacquer brush.
The training was rigorous and unhurried. Eric taught the way Bobot had taught him — through demonstration, repetition, and the patient correction of errors. There were no shortcuts. An apprentice might spend months learning only to prepare a surface before ever applying lacquer. This was not cruelty; it was respect for the craft and for the student. By the time an apprentice made their first true lacquer application, they understood the material from the inside out.
"When a deaf artisan places their hands on a drying lacquer panel, they can feel what the rest of us cannot. The vibration of the material as it cures. The warmth of a layer that is alive. Their sensitivity is not a compensation — it is a gift."
The Deaf Artisans of Siem Reap
The partnership with Krousar Thmey — Cambodia's leading foundation for deaf and blind youth — transformed the workshop in ways no one anticipated. Eric had been asked to train a small group of deaf young people as part of the foundation's vocational program. What he discovered was remarkable: deaf artisans possessed an extraordinary aptitude for lacquer work. Their visual precision was exceptional. Their patience — honed by a lifetime of navigating a world designed for hearing people — was ideally suited to a craft that demands stillness and sustained attention.
But it was their sensitivity to vibration that proved most extraordinary. Lacquer, as it polymerizes, generates subtle heat and movement. A deaf artisan, working with their hands in direct contact with the surface, could detect curing stages that hearing artisans missed entirely. They could feel the material breathing. Today, over seventy percent of the workshop's artisans are deaf, and the quality of their work is among the finest produced anywhere in the world.
A Craft That Gives Back
Over ten years, Eric trained more than 350 Cambodian artisans. Not all remained in lacquer — some moved to furniture making, some to construction, some to other trades. But each carried with them the discipline of the workshop: the understanding that excellence is not about talent alone but about patience, precision, and the willingness to begin again when a piece falls short. For the deaf artisans who stayed, the workshop became more than employment. It became a community, a language of shared craft, and proof that mastery recognizes no barriers.
The hands that shape Stocker Studio's work today are the inheritors of this decade of transmission — 350 hands that learned to listen to lacquer, and in doing so, found their own voice.
The Carnets d'Atelier are our workshop journals — reflections on craft, material, and the slow work of making things that endure.
Continue exploring:
The lineage that led here — Eric's mentor, Pierre Bobot, The Master's Master, and his twenty-five years at the Mobilier National.
The full story of the workshop is on Our Story. Or browse the work itself in all collections.
