Sabina Santos: Sandblasted Natural Billiard with Bamboo with Tiger's Eye Tobacco Pipe

Inspired by her husband's pipe smoking, Sabina Santos took to pipe making as a way to express her creative side in a unique way. She worked mostly on her own to refine her skills, with a few trips here and there to study at the workshops of Danish masters like Tom Eltang, Kai Nielsen, Tao, Former, and Kurt Balleby. Overtime, her talent bloomed, and she now enjoys a global following that admires here work for its gorgeous shaping, immaculate finishing, and expert engineering.

This Billiard is rich and lavish rendition of the classic shape, and the Danish influence is quite evident when considering the bowl, which features a plump, wide heel that tapers steadily toward the tauter rim. The shank extends a hair out of the low-set transition before giving way to three knuckles of warm, eye-catching bamboo. Each node of the organic material is accented with a tiger's eye stone, a copper-hued mineral that not only accentuates the rhythmic spacing of the bamboo but also pays homage to the Chinese Year of the Tiger. A saddle stem of brindled vulcanite tops off the design and complements the intricate tones of the tiger's eye. The stummel wears a bold, virgin sandblast, which coaxes out rippling growth rings across the surface of the bowl. Besides being simply stunning, the stummel will accrue a patina with time and use, darkening with further character.