Abe Herbaugh: Smooth Chestnut with Horn Tobacco Pipe

Over the past few years, we've observed Vermont-based carver Abe Herbaugh experiment with a signature Tomato rendition. While their exact shaping varies across versions, they're all marked by a certain asymmetry and stoutness: the rim often wavy and offset and the curves of the shank matching the roundness of the bowl. This Chestnut from Abe follows similar design cues but offers a more svelte and streamlined demeanor compared to the voluptuous nature of his Tomato design.

The bowl aligns perfectly with this pipe's Chestnut moniker, and personally, it recalls the chestnuts — "conkers" as we called them — that friends and I would throw at each other when we were kids. In this piece, said bowl cants forward strikingly, belying its squat nature for a highly dynamic sense of momentum. The flanks curl slightly inward at the rim, but unlike many of Abe's Tomato renditions, this piece features a crisp chamfer at the rim, contrasting the bowl's plump curvature with a sleek, faceted aspect. Like those Tomato shapes, though, the rim here is offset in its wavy orientation, adding a touch of organic asymmetry to the overall composition.

The majority of the shank comprises a military mount of genuine horn, and the end flares into a rounded dome that mimics the upward roundness of the bowl. Together, these two aspects mirror each other, creating compositional harmony, which is repeated a third time at the stem base: A hand-cut protrusion echoes the shank end but in more diminutive style before reducing into the slender mouthpiece. This repetition of bulbous curves is one that Abe's employed on the aforementioned Tomato shapes, and it creates a narrative element throughout the pipe that ties stem, shank, and bowl together as one cohesive construct. Dressed in a rich, honey-blonde contrast stain, the briar's grain aligns beautifully with the stummel's asymmetric shaping, furthering its organic inclination and making for a standout piece fit for any collection. This pipe is yet another example of Abe creatively riffing off of his own creative inclinations, utilizing design cues he's employed before but with discernible variation as to create a singular piece all his own.