Scott Klein: Sandblasted Cauldron with Boxwood Tobacco Pipe

Scott Klein has extensive experience working with his hands, his background including trades such as construction, automotive technology, and plumbing. As such, the American artisan's deft hand and precise eye were naturally suited to the pipe-making discipline, pairing well with the shaping sensibilities of Danish and Japanese masters that would inform much of his portfolio. Klein's influences show in his clean, curvaceous line work and penchant for gestural compositions, design cues which are excellently showcased by this Cauldron rendition. The bowl's voluptuous figure contours naturally to the hand, formed by supple walls flaring from the sweeping heel toward a plump waist, where they then cinch as they taper toward the taught, subtly undulating rim. A muscular shank curls upward out of a defined transition out back, flaring toward a pale boxwood accent at the shank end as it meets a downturned saddle stem, the arrangement poised for comfortable smoking. Klein's discerning eye also extends to his finishing work, with the stummel here displaying pronounced waves of growth rings wrapping around its surface and blasted birdseye along the underside beneath a crisp, inky sandblast, with the rim dressed in a rich, smooth stain for a touch of contrast.