Wandi Riyadi: Smooth Volcano Tobacco Pipe

In 2011, while working as an IT engineer, Indonesian native Wandi Riyadi began smoking a pipe and became enamored with the hobby and all that it entailed. He soon tried his hand at making a pipe, and before long, he was obsessed. He eventually left his job and became a full-time pipe maker, leaving behind his previous career to chase his creative interests. One of Indonesia's few pipe makers, Ryadi has established himself as an artisan of note and garnered an international audience of discerning collectors. His work takes inspiration from highly influential masters, like the Ivarssons, Bo Nordh, and Hiroyuki Tokutomi, and as such, his work is often highly organic, though he does craft more conservative pieces as well. This Volcano showcases Riyadi's deft ability to craft unique forms in a distinctive and eye-catching fashion.

While this piece maintains the form's core features, namely the shape's squat, tapered bowl and ridgeline-wrapped heel, it possesses a pronounced curvature that sets it apart from other Volcano renditions. This curvature manifests in the heel and shank, both of which are unified by a consistent undercurve that stretches from fore to aft. A ridgeline wraps the totality of the sweeping undercurve and highlights its visual prominence, while additionally providing a touch of contrasting structure to the shape's silhouette. Though incredibly compact, with a total length of less than five inches, this piece is quite dense, and it offers a broad canvas of briar, which showcases gorgeous stands of flame grain, all underneath a rich, auburn stain.