Smooth Blowfish with Bamboo Tobacco Pipe

While a quarter-bent (or even full-bent) Blowfish tends to be the norm in terms of common pipe shapes, Scott Klein serves up one decidedly gorgeous straight rendition of the famous Danish design. The bowl is beautifully grained, cut to show off marbled bird's eye on either flank, as well as handsomely striped cross-grain against its y-axis. The bowl also sports a dipped fin along its left posterior (in a manner very similar to the Tokutomi Blowfish). From the bowl we find sprouted a perfectly pencil thin shank, and from here transitions four knots of matte finished bamboo, the whole thing being finished with a slender, tapered, ever-so-slightly bent stem. It's a marvelous composition; one I truly hope to see from the carver again.

-- Ted Swearingen