Todd Johnson: ***Partially Sandblasted Shield with Bakelite (Hoplite) Tobacco Pipe

Over his decades-spanning career, Todd Johnson has built an immense following and a considerable reputation in the world of pipe making. He has a Master's degree in Aesthetics from Yale and studied under many great pipe makers, including Danish carvers Tom Eltang and Anne Julie. While he boasts an impressively diverse portfolio, Johnson often fashions unique, highly stylized shapes that could be mistaken for sculptures if not for their superb internal engineering, which reveals their true function as smoking instruments. Here, Johnson presents his interpretation of the Shield shape, the first we've outside of a previous estate sale.

While the Shield shape is typically rendered with a wrapping ridgeline that bifurcates the bowl and creates a domed fore, this rendition takes the design to its logical conclusion. Though the bowl retains the concave fore and the pointed heel associated with the shape, Johnson has softened the form's ridgeline to make it almost nonexistent, allowing the aft and fore of the bowl to meld together. The resulting effect gives the shape the actual appearance of a shield. The bowl is paired to vertically orientated shank-and-stem arrangement that lends the composition a good bit of height but otherwise keeps the design compact and tight-knit. Most of the stummel wears a beautiful dark sandblast, except for the fore of the bowl and a wrapping band of briar around the shank end, which are left smooth and stained a warm, ruddy color. The fore's glossy smooth finish reveals tight wisps of handsome cross grain, while the bright white color of the Bakelite stem really pops against the subdued palette of the stummel.