Jody Davis: Smooth Asymmetric Tulip with Ivorite (Bishop) (A20) (31) Tobacco Pipe

As guitarist for the popular rock band Newsboys, Jody Davis receives plenty of artistic praise without my adding to it, but how can anyone look at his pipe and not think he's wasting his time with that lame music career. He should be making more pipes. He does try. He keeps a portable pipe making workshop on the band bus and makes pipes in the parking lot during downtime at venues where he plays. It doesn't matter if he makes them in a parking lot or in his workshop in Nashville, though; they are always stunning.

This smooth Tulip offers a sinuous length of briar in a sturdy format, its teardrop shank muscular through the Horn-like transition and rising to a bright accent of Ivorite. The bowl expands upward from the heel into an undulating rim of dense plateau, while the stem reveals its saddle configuration with a quick declension from the single expansion ring at its base. The grain is spectacularly situated across all flanks, and overall this piece provides the remarkable shaping skills of Davis in a well balanced and endlessly interesting rendition.