Werner Mummert: Sandblasted Reverse Calabash Poker with Polymerized Corn Leaves Tobacco Pipe

Werner Mummuert has curated an aesthetic that's highly sculptural and inspired by art and architecture movements from around the world. Much of his portfolio consists of Bauhaus, Brutalist, Art Deco, and Modern Art-infused pipes that reflect not only a keen eye for shaping and composition, but a highly technical skill set which is especially prevalent in his signature renditions of classic profiles such as this Poker.

A reverse Calabash piece, this pipe is very much unlike any others not seen within Mummert's body of work, as it incorporates a material that we've only really seen him use: glass. The entirety of the condensation chamber which makes this pipe a reverse Calabash is crafted from a tube of clear tempered glass, making for a pipe that's unmistakable as Werner's. Additionally, the clarity of this glass enables one to see the smoke as it accumulates within the chamber and makes cleaning extremely easy, as one can see exactly where moisture has built up inside of it. This glass tube is fitted to the shank via a pair of rubber gaskets that surround the extended shank end, with the stem attaching in the same manner. This stem is a trim saddle affair whose base has been adorned with a broad fitment of another unique material, polymerized corn leaves, lending a dose of highly stylized organicism tempered by an inorganic setting. The shank as a whole is quite trim, pushing out of a wide transition and married to the bowl slightly above the base, with this base being a flattened, slightly slanted one that sees the bowl rising out of it at a forward-urging angle. Said bowl is cylindrical and rises to a broad rim that showcases the thickness of its insulating walls, the wealth of briar here acting as a perfect canvass for one of Mummert's exceptional sandblasts, revealing dense, craggy ripples of concentric ring grain that have here been stained a vibrant ruby hue.