Smooth Apple with Mastodon Ivory Tobacco Pipe

Some of the great pipe makers shape their pipes in such a manner that the eye is instantly drawn to an edge or feature and then compelled for a while to follow the edges before taking in the main body; Kent Rasmussen would be a perfect example. Then you have artists whose work tends to create the inverse reaction, the composition as a whole takes you and, once it has done its preliminary speaking, let's you look at the nifty details. Nanna Ivarsson is the later. Nanna's pipes are usually designed around a central line or arc, think of this line as the central framework of a piece of architecture. Around this skeleton is a beautiful and logical outgrowth which is an extension of the former. Whether we are speaking of that wonderfully spherical, straight grain bowl, or the gentle arc of the superb modified "D shank, what we are seeing is the beautiful exterior of a painfully perfect interior.

--Bear Graves