Todd Johnson Smooth Elephants Foot with Bamboo (c. 2003) Tobacco Pipe

A woodworker for years before he started making pipes in 2000, Todd Johnson's first pipe was a graduation gift for a friend that he says ignited his true love for smoking pipes. Todd formally studied aesthetics as a student at Samford University as an undergraduate and Yale University as a master's student, and credits both his aesthetics studies and his pipe-making studies from Danish legends Tom Eltang and Lars Ivarsson with influencing his work.

This Elephant's Foot from Todd is a very handsome work that no doubt took considerable work on Todd's part, as well as considerable imagination. The bowl, of wide fore and aft and more slender flanks, sports some excellent grain — the flanks dressed in tight cross grain and the fore and aft showcasing brilliant birdseye. The bowl is also stained a lovely walnut hue that gives the grain plenty of room to breathe and finished smoothly for an eminently gentle touch to the hand. A three-knuckle length of bamboo backs up a stub of briar shank behind the bowl, reaching back to a lightly bent saddle stem of vulcanite. From heel to bit, it's a very original, very handsome, and very well-made piece from Todd that will satisfy any search for an Elephant's Foot-fronted work.