Werner Mummert: Sandblasted Reverse Calabash Poker Tobacco Pipe

Werner Mummert's portfolio is one of the most striking, engrossing, and utterly unique in all the world of pipe making, with designs ranging from dramatized riffs on classic profiles, to technicolor Brutalist sculpture. Then there is this. A reverse Calabash Poker that exudes a decadent practicality, something that is both stripped down to its basics, while also adorning itself with glass and metal. Though this isn't really adornment, this addition is wholly necessary in order for this signature implementation of reverse Calabash engineering to work, as the entirety of the shank is a hollow glass tube, acting as the condensation chamber to allow for the smoke to cool before it is sipped, while the pair of springs at either flank keep pressure on it from both ends, holding it in place.

I look at this and see a kind of modernist functionalism, with the modern elements of its construction (the glass and metal) making me think incessantly of the Futurist movement as, despite there not being any implication of movement, the constant presence of potential energy and the stark contrast between the organic and the man-made leads me ceaselessly in that direction. The bowl here is a solid, tall cylinder, perhaps the sole remnant of the classic Poker's silhouette present in this novel re-imagining, and features a narrow, deep chamber. The mouthpiece is paired to a "shank end" of cylindrical briar that presses against the glass, providing a kind of balance, with the organic grasped by the man-made and in between it, though ultimately, the natural begins and end this piece, discounting the vulcanite stem of course. A soft auburn sandblast dresses the briar here, showcasing some handsome grain and further contrasting the silvery metal springs and clear glass' sheen.