Todd Johnson: Sandblasted Natural Acorn with Ivorite Tobacco Pipe

With over two decades of pipe-making experience, American carver Todd Johnson has earned quite the reputation for his highly original and aesthetically rich designs. The American artisan boasts a masters degree in aesthetics from Yale and has studied under venerated legends of the craft, including Danish masters Tom Eltang and Lars Ivarsson. He traveled to Denmark to study the elegant design sensibility and functional craftsmanship that marks the Danish tradition, doing so long before that became the norm. His work exhibits a wide range of influences, but they are all channeled through Johnson's own artistic prism, and the pipes he crafts are singularly his own. His work often takes the form of organic, sculptural shapes that showcase his keen eye for balance and finishing, as evidenced by this striking Acorn.

A willowy interpretation of the shape-chart standard, this Acorn features a protracted shank that stretches out the form's silhouette. The shank displays a subtle flare as it exits the low-set transition, its gradual broadening naturally leading the eye away from the bowl and to the Ivorite accent and saddle stem at the pipe's rear. In contrast to the shank's more stylized build, the bowl is the platonic ideal of the form, boasting a steady upward flare from its reserved, slightly protruding heel to its wide, subtly rounded rim. The bowl's elegant contours conform naturally to the hand, and the spacious transition offers ample room to drape a digit. A crimson sandblast dresses the stummel and draws out rippling growth rings across the flanks of the bowl.