Chris Asteriou: Sandblasted Cutty with Silver Army Mount Tobacco Pipe

Chris Asteriou's designs typically fall into one of two categories: organic shapes, like the Strawberry, Acorn, and Tomato, and traditional takes on the classics. Usually, the Greek carver will accent his renditions accordingly — often pairing organic shapes with organic accents, such as bamboo, horn, or birch, while his traditional pieces are more likely to be adorned with silver or simply left unaccented. His Cutty design, however, is something of a blend of these two categories. Though an old-fashioned, classic shape, the Cutty when rendered by Chris becomes rather organic, featuring an Acorn-like waist and heel spur. Chris accentuates both of those aspects in this piece, bulging the waistline above quite a tapered transition to lend the bowl a poised, almost flower bulb nature. With this, combined with his signature heel spur, the shape's organic cues come to the forefront. Juxtaposing that, though, is Asteriou's use of a silver army mount and classic, understated finish. As mentioned before, Chris typically uses silver on his more traditional pieces, and here especially, the use of a military mount is an obvious nod to classic, old Anglo-French pipes. Combined with the gorgeous sandblast and dark stain, the traditional appeal and intriguing organicism are united by the artisan's exquisite craftsmanship for a design that's certainly becoming somewhat of a signature shape for Asteriou.