Smooth Speeding Tomato Tobacco Pipe

Japanese-born artisan Ken Dederichs took up pipe making in 2005, shortly before he moved to Germany. He turned to the craft full-time in 2008 after working as an architect for years, and takes inspiration from the Japanese and Danish schools of pipe making in his work today. This "speeding" Tomato of Ken's is a great rendition of the modified shape — essentially a classic Tomato with a pronounced sense of forward motion.

The bowl is plenty round for a Tomato-like appearance, and the significant forward cant gives the piece its sense of speed, as though the bowl is running away from the shank. The grain of the bowl is lovely, with thick birdseye on the flanks and cross grain running in between. Ken's smooth finish allows the grain to be appreciated easily on both the bowl and the round shank, which is muscular and wears similar grain as it stretches back to a minutely bent saddle stem of vulcanite. Ken's close attention to detail paid off here with this beautifully imagined and executed variation of the classic Tomato.