Yeti: Sandblasted Bent Brandy with Bronze and Bakelite (691) Tobacco Pipe

Micah Cryder is the man behind Yeti Pipes, and one who came into the world of artisan pipe making as a fourth generation pipe smoker and a high school senior, determined to craft smoking instruments of his own after a lifelong fascination with the art. As a Montana native, Cryder, based in Billings, is surrounded with the glory of nature, the peaks of the Beartooth Mountains which surround him surely an impact on his design choices, coalescing with the styles of Art Deco and the American artisan pipe-making movement. This convergence can be seen here in this bent Brandy, though this particular example strikes me as having a greater deal of Art Deco sensibility about it, as it captures both the starkly structural, through its separation of vibrancy and darkness in color, and the gently curvaceous.

The palette of this piece is immediately visually arresting, with vivid hues of swirling yellow courtesy of the antique Bakelite stem, stepping down to slightly more subdued bronze through a fitment at the shank end, one whose shimmering surface is immediately evocative of the aforementioned French design school, especially when, as in this case, it is paired with an inky black stummel. The lines of this pipe follow a gentle curvature, with the stem's gentle downturn beginning a descent into an equally softly upturned shank, starting the slightest of S-curves when paired with the bowl. A broad transition lifts into the rim swiftly, reinforcing the squatness of the bowl, and develops a rapid taper as it travels, bringing to attention the more steep taper of the fore end and the plump, low-set waistline from which it originates. This is thrust into further prominence by way of the lifting heel underneath, completing the S-curve mentioned earlier in a wonderful fashion and resulting in a natural feel in hand through the placement of the waist's breadth. The stummel is an inky black, though it's been paired here to a beautiful sandblast which reveals concentric ring grain that rises in undulating waves up from the heel to the rim, the underside awash in blasted birdseye that presents as textural pinpricks.