Tsuge Ikebana: Smooth Bent Apple with Bamboo (Kikuchi) (H) (023) (2022) Tobacco Pipe

Asami Kikuchi is the youngest of the three artisan that work in the Tsuge Ikebana workshop. She became fascinated with pipes in her 20s when she utilized the Ikebana workshop's equipment for a school project. Artisan pipe making spoke to her almost immediately, and she asked to stay and learn more about the craft. Kazuhiro Fukuda, the workshop's supervisor and a former student of Sixten Ivarsson, took Kikuchi on as an apprentice, and in 2013, she became an artisan for the workshop. This bent Apple is a fine example of her style, as it possesses a touch of organic character but otherwise retains a sleek, understated profile.

Lithe and softly bent, this piece features an especially plump, contoured bowl that's perched at the fore of a slender shank-and-stem arrangement. The bowl gently tapers from heel to rim, creating plenty circumference to cradle in hand, while the shank glides from the low-set transition before giving way to four knuckles of warm bamboo, which itself surrenders to a svelte saddle stem of jet-black vulcanite. The bamboo lightens the overall form and provides a naturalistic quality to the composition. Each knuckle of the bamboo is evenly spaced, creating a visual rhythm that can be traced from the transition to the shoulders of the mouthpiece. This visual rhythm draws the eyes across the pipe's profile and accentuates each aspect of the composition, from the bowl to the bit of the mouthpiece. A smoky, auburn smooth finish dresses the stummel and highlights fine tendrils of flame grain across the flanks of the bowl and dense birdseye at the heel.