Smooth Blowfish with Bamboo Tobacco Pipe

When Sykes told me we were getting new works from camp J. Alan I was instantly eager to see for myself the goods that would be delivered. That we're getting fresh pipes from Jeff is always a cause for celebration at Smokingpipes.com, even if it's simply a private, three-minute jig in the conference room; we like his work that much 'round these parts. However, when I saw this pipe for the first time, via a snapshot Jeff took with a cell phone, through the tiny monitor courtesy of Sykes' cell phone, I was thoroughly stunned, floored, stupefied. But that's what great pipe makers do; they make those phenomenal, one-of-a-kind art objects that twist hearts and minds into happy, hard to untangle, junior knots. And that's what this pipe does.

It seems Jeff has shown us a handful of Blowfish shapes over the last year or so, almost as if he's particularly infatuated with the shape at this moment in his process, or, on the other hand, as if he's struggling to work out some grand jig-saw puzzle in the imagination through this repeated undertaking. Either way the numerous and varied results have been fantastic, and they appear, at least in the current, to culminate with his latest breathtaking offering.

The shape of this particular Blowfish is as supple and athletic as it is sharp, clean and precise along its lines. As can be seen clearly, the grain Jeff has managed to coax out of this ebauchon is extraordinary in its own right, its right side replete with swirling bird's eye, its top and bottom cut appropriately with a swath of wispy cross-grain. However, it's the exacting form that brings cohesion and definition to the grain, a performance which here Jeff has orchestrated masterfully. Although, perhaps my favorite component of this piece is the five compressed knuckles of gnarled, and carefully handled bamboo that the carver has put to use as the pipe's shank, a piece of bamboo, in fact, that Jeff picked up from Cornelius Mänz when the two worked together in Cornelius' workshop late this summer (at that, this pipe saw its conception in Germany, which you have to admit is pretty cool). The manner and use of exotic material in this instance captivated my attention from the moment I first saw the piece staring at me from a blurry, miniature monitor in all its pixelated glory.

Really though, it's the whole composition, a summary of parts working together seamlessly, fluidly, on account of the prowess of the pipe maker, that really warms my heart when turning over this Blowfish. Beautiful work.

-- Ted Swearingen