Scottie Piersel: Relief Contrast Pencil Shank Brandy with Ivorite Tobacco Pipe

Leveraging a background in industrial engineering, sculpting, and architecture, Scottie Piersel fashions sleek, dynamic shapes that prioritize functionality and longevity above all else. That's not to say her work isn't visually rich, because it most certainly is, but Piersel prefers for aesthetics to complement rather than supersede her pipe's engineering and shaping. Piersel produces a wide range of shapes, but she's perhaps best know for her pencil-shanked pipes, such as this Brandy.

Long, lean, and impressively elegant, this piece stretches past 8 inches in total length, but the slender diameter of the shank manages to keep the overall form incredibly lightweight. At first glance, one could be forgiven for assuming that this piece was haphazardly constructed, as the lengthy, svelte shank-and-stem arrangement seems too fragile to hold the bowl's stout, muscular build. But Piersel accounts for the weight disparity of her pipes by lining all of her pencil shanks with stainless steel tubing for added durability. Not only is this pipe beautifully rendered, but it's also handsomely finished in Piersel's Relief sandblast, which coaxes out rippling grain throughout the stummel. An accent of Ivorite completes the ensemble and adds a pop of vibrant color to the pipe's aft.