Tsuge Ikebana: Sandblasted Bent Egg with Bamboo (Kikuchi) (F) (040) (21) Tobacco Pipe

Asami Kikuchi is the youngest of the three artisan working 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 Egg is a fine example of her style, as it possesses a touch of organic character but otherwise retains a sleek, understated profile.

This piece features a tall, forward-canted bowl that rises from a plump, subtly lifted heel and tapers toward a taut rim. Said rim is raised higher at its fore than its aft, a shaping cue that accentuates the bowl's dynamic posture and creates a supple curvature along the bowl's back wall, which arcs gently into the low-set transition. A trim shank brings up the rear of the composition before giving way to three knuckles of bamboo, which immediately brighten the shape's reserved color palette. The bamboo adds an organic flair to the form's profile and acts as a bridge between the stummel and the demurely curved saddle stem. A dark sandblast dresses the stummel and unveils concentric growth rings that radiate up the flanks of the bowl before terminating at the smoothly polished rim.