David Huber: Sandblasted Volcano (3422) Tobacco Pipe

David Huber has been obsessed with the art of pipe making since buying his first pipe in 2006, spending the proceeding years collecting even more pieces and studying various design schools, with a focus on the Japanese and Danish aesthetics. During this period, Huber worked as a freelance designer for live theater productions, and ordered his first blocks of briar in 2010, carving the shapes and holes entirely by hand, spending two entire years refining them before they were finally finished. By the end, he was dedicated to the craft. In 2014 he began to carve pipes full time, his progress furthered by tutelage from artisans such as Jeff Gracik, Tom Eltang, and Nanna Ivarsson.

This Volcano is one of very few that we've received from the artisan, though it's certainly the most strikingly designed of these, with an overall shaping quality that goes in a more evocative direction than most Volcanoes we've seen. The stummel has effectively been split through the middle thanks to a deep cleft that runs through most of the briar's circumference at the aft end. This cleft introduces a wealth of firm ridgelines and visually divides the bowl from the shank, dissipating at the right flank and introducing a touch of curvature as it does. By creating this kind of defined separation, Huber gives the impression that this pipe is not simply a Volcano, but a volcanic island with a second, slightly smaller mountain attached to the larger one, the two split by an inlet though still inexorably linked. In addition, the overall shaping here is far more geometric than one would expect from a Volcano, with the bowl maintaining its tapering shape, albeit much more conservatively and while being surrounded by several rounded ridges that lend it and the base a diamond shape, with the base and a panel on the left flank being defined by firmer ridges. The smaller mass of briar at the aft marries the stummel to a trim, demurely downturned saddle stem whose base has been fitted with a curved diagonal expansion ring that matches the shape of the briar it meets, the stummel dressed in a crisp, grain defining chestnut sandblast.