Sandblasted Sixten Ivarsson Tribute Potato Sack with Zebrawood Tobacco Pipe

Formerly known as the American Pipe Making Exposition, our annual Global Pipe Making Exposition features contributions from some of the world's foremost artisans, all united around a central theme. One of the most exciting events of the year for carvers, smokers, and enthusiasts of briar alike, the Global Exposition acts not only as a showcase for the immense talent of these artisans but a focus for the boundless creativity that these masters of the art possess. For 2025, the theme of our Expo is "In Memoriam," celebrating the life and works of artisans who have passed on, yet whose impact on the craft and those around them is utterly undeniable.

Silver Gray is well-equipped for this year's Expo theme, possessing an in-depth knowledge of pipe-making history and a knack for incorporating vintage design cues. Over the years, she's fashioned her own signature shapes alongside renditions of Danish classics, and even some pipes with NAP stems: an invention of Peterson's that the marque quit producing in the early 20th century. For 2025's Expo, Gray has fittingly chosen to honor the father of artisan pipe making and perhaps the most influential pipe maker of all time: Sixten Ivarsson.

Ivarsson's "drill first, shape second" methodology revolutionized artisan pipe making and paved the path for all the carvers and unique, stylized shapes that followed. Silver has lovingly recreated Ivarsson's signature Potato Sack, a shape he pioneered using the aforementioned technique. The Potato Sack is a deceptively simple design, appearing at first to be a somewhat lopsided embellishment of the Acorn, marked by a gracile and sinuous shank-and-stem arrangement. When the bowl is viewed from above, however, the shape reveals its true nature, and its namesake becomes clear: The bowl's flanks possess a steady upward flare, while the fore and aft are compressed. The bowl's back-to-front compression creates a unique, ovoid rim that contrasts the pointed definition of the heel.

This rendition from Gray captures the spirit of Sixten's Potato Sack, but imbues it with a character distinctly her own. Firstly, Gray has fashioned this piece from 40-year-old Sardinian briar, the aged wood adding a tantalizing vintage to the shape. Secondly, Gray has rendered this Potato Sack with a noticeable forward-urging posture: the heel, a chin-like outcropping of briar; the waistline, softly cinched; the rim, like the heel, canted outward. These cues work in concert to lend the totality of the bowl a semi-crescent outline, suspended at the fore of a willowy shank-and-stem arrangement.

Gray has finished this piece in a crisp, earthy sandblast, the dress drawing out defined grain across the briar's surface, save for the rim, which is smoothly polished for tactile contrast. Gray has completed this piece with a warm accent of zebrawood, which mirrors the smoothness of the rim and livens the pipe's otherwise dark, moody palette.

Gray has here crafted a fitting tribute to Sixten's legacy, and a masterful composition that flexes her own pipe-making prowess.