Ping Zhan: Partially Rusticated Reverse Calabash Bent Apple with Boxwood Tobacco Pipe

The word "Zen" comes from the Japanese vernacular attempt at pronouncing the Chinese word "Chan," which, as it goes, is the Chinese attempt at pronouncing the Sanskrit word "Dhyana", which translates into English as "meditation." The very concept, evoked by this Blowfish-esque reverse Calabash bent Apple rendition from Chinese pipemaker Ping Zhan, is even ultimately demonstrated by the history of the shape itself. What I mean is, the Blowfish shape is believed to have been borne in the mind of Lars Ivarsson, though likely influenced by the asymmetrical shaping experiments of his father, Sixten, who served as mentor to Hiroyuki Tokutomi, who is considered the progenitor of today's Blowfish archetype.

Tokutomi made the Blowfish distinctly his own, imbuing it with a dynamic sense of motion through water, implied by varying degrees of asymmetry and undulation to the aft and fore, for example. It is from Tokutomi and the Japanese school of shaping that Ping draws most of his influence, resulting in diminutive, delicately shaped feats of engineering, showcasing a vast display of crisp detail, organic playfulness, inherent functionality, not to mention a similar subtle sense of asymmetry and implied motion. It is undoubtedly clear that Ping Zhan is developing a growing ownership of his aesthetic with each new briar he creates.

- Daniel Bumgardner