Chris Asteriou: Smooth Calabash with Curly Birch (55/17) Tobacco Pipe

This style of deeply sweeping, tight-knit Calabash shape is one we've seen a few times from Chris Asteriou now, yet each rendition brings its own unique characteristics and design cues into play. Here in this example, Chris has kept the traditional gourd's functionality, with a removable cap and a large condensation chamber within the bowl itself. Yet unlike the traditional gourd, he's played around with the mediums, using smooth-polished briar for most of the stummel and fashioning the cap and mount from stunning curly birch — its lighter shade really contrasting nicely with the darker, warmer tones of the main body. The chamber itself, however, is still rendered in briar, making it the perfect fusion of form and function.

- Andrew Wike