Tsuge Ikebana: Smooth Volcano (Fukuda) (O) (273) (17) Tobacco Pipe

Kazuhiro Fukuda supervises the Tsuge Ikebana workshop which comprises two other artisans: Asami Kikuchi and Yoshirou Ohi. While all three carvers fashion their own handmade pipes individually, they're all united under the Ikebana name, meaning "living flowers" in Japanese and referring to Japan's highest form of artistic flower arrangements. As an artisan pipe maker, Fukuda's career dates to before Ikebana's founding: One of Tsuge's early artisans, Fukuda was sent to Denmark in the late 1960s and early '70s to learn from iconic Danish pipe makers like Sixten Ivarsson. He returned to Japan with honed skills and artisan pipe-making knowledge and helped establish the Ikebana workshop, showcasing Tsuge's prestigious, handmade pipes.

This particular Volcano rendition from the revered Japanese master resembles other examples we've seen from him, most notably in the differentiation of the stummel's base. Instead of only carving a single ridgeline to separate the pipe's underside, Fukuda has rendered a sweeping panel that wraps the entire form before curling upward and flaring in height toward the stem. Such a design cue adds a forward-urging sense of momentum to the composition that's balanced out by the stem's gentle downturn, and it works to accentuate the bowl's comparatively stoic stance: It rises upward from the broad base, tapering slightly to resemble the shape's naturalistic namesake. The vast base not only provides a sturdy sitting ability and muscular platform for the shape to rise from, but its lifting of the stem offers a touch of added organicism, as if its rise and downturn were the edge of another mountain: the volcanic bowl but one in a vast range of rocky peaks. The stunning grain throughout this briar is highlighted in a honey-auburn finish for a vibrant aesthetic, with especially impressive birdseye veining present on the underside, and the entire composition combines to earn the workshop's prestigious O grade.