Davide Iafisco: Sandblasted Acorn Tobacco Pipe

While Davide Iafisco takes inspiration from a wide variety of carvers, including Teddy Knudsen, Claudio Cavicchi, Jeff Gracik, and Adam Davidson, he elevates those influences through his distinctive approach to shaping, handsome finishing work, and keen sense of visual harmony. This Acorn is a fine example of his style, as it possesses the organic qualities found in Danish pipe making but rendered through Iafisco's creative prism. While the pipe is rather tight-knit, it maintains a strong sense of muscularity to its construction, especially around the broad, forward-canted bowl, which features the form's characteristic high-set waistline capped, in this example, with a craggy and organically asymmetrical plateau rim. Behind the pinched transition, a lozenge-shaped shank flares outward, flanked by subtle ridges that lend the silhouette a touch of structure. A comfortably bent vulcanite shank completes the ensemble, joined to the shank in a second plateau section, maintaining the untamed style on display. Dressed in a crisp black sandblast, the stummel offers a wealth of engaging texture, handsomely contrasted by a smooth, walnut-hued inner rim.