Jared Coles: Smooth Blowfish Tobacco Pipe

Jared Coles' signature style combines the Danish school's clean lines and supple curves with a muscular aesthetic that's uniquely North American. Such shaping produces singular interpretations of classic forms, as evidenced by this rather brawny Blowfish. The Blowfish is a notoriously difficult shape to craft, requiring a keen eye for grain and meticulous line work. Coles, being a master craftsman, however, was more than up for the challenge, producing a iteration of the artisan shape that's simply striking. Crisp ridgelines unevenly bifurcate the bowl and frame their respective lopsided flanks. The bowl's pronounced unevenness continues through the shank, which is asymmetrically framed by ridgelines and terminates at a broad, angled face. The askewed build of the stummel paradoxically fosters a visual cohesion across the length of the briar, with the bowl and shank mirroring one another, if not in the precise proportional manner we're accustomed. It's stylishly presented in a warm, glossy smooth finish that highlights gorgeous birdseye and cross grain across the briar's surface.