Davide Iafisco: Smooth Volcano Tobacco Pipe

With a deep appreciation for the history and craft of pipe making, Davide Iafisco takes inspiration from various schools of design. He studied personally under carvers like Teddy Knudsen and Claudio Cavicchi and attended the pipe-making seminars of Jeff Gracik and Adam Davidson. Those influences are obviously present in his work, but Iafisco also transforms and elevates his influences into something completely his own. The Volcano is a shape Iafisco returns to with some frequency, and anytime he crafts one, it's always impressive to see how the Italian artisan will render the architectural form through his own creative prism. This particular interpretation boasts the form's tapered rim and ridgeline-wrapped base, but it differs in terms of the shank, which is here protracted and trails some distance behind the bowl.

Within the composition, the shank acts as the inverse mirror to the bowl. While the bowl's wide base tapers upward toward the rim, the shank expands outward to its face, going from a narrow strait of briar to a wide, funneled disc before quickly tapering into the slender cumberland stem. The extra length of the shank and its subtle upward sweep keep the overall form somewhat gestural, without distracting from the pointed angles and sharp ridgelines that frame the totality of the stummel. The negative space between the aft wall of the bowl and the expansion of the shank face allows the eyes to fully appreciate either end of the composition, and it provides a nice spot to drape a thumb or digit. It's dressed in a glossy auburn smooth finish that highlights fine strands of flame grain as they rise in concert with the bowl's upward taper to the birdseye-speckled rim.