Smooth Vase (One Snail) Tobacco Pipe

If a new student of Tokutomi's art needed an example of the dauntingly broad Anima that the master can create within one general oeuvre, one of the best shapes I could point him to would be his tulip/vase sitters. I have seen them imbued with a great deal of the Bo Nordh Ramses spirit, I have seen them as young bonsai plantings, being "trained" by a tenba rooted into the ground, I have even seen them as a kana (a hot water urn that is used in tea ceremonies), posed with with an heirloom katana as a background. Now I have encountered one that is.(dare I say it?), compact and downright adorable! Much of the compact is created simply by having the shank and bowl as near equals in compositional impact. In addition, this sitter makes an exceptional use of familiar geometric forms; the near perfect ellipses of the shank, juxtaposed against the near perfect circle of the rim. I need to emphasize that the use of a couple of symmetrical geometric shapes does not detract a whit from Tokutomi's legendary sense of the organic. Quite the contrary, the regularity of the circle and the ellipsis serve to emphasize the disparity of lean, an aspect that is simply part of the tao of nature. As to the "adorable"? You really have to hold it to believe it.

--Bear Graves