In the first part of the interview we discussed some of Alex Florov's background and explored some of the similarities between his works and that of Maigurs Knets. This continuation will discuss Alex's thoughts on other modern pipe makers and hint at his plans for the future.

SPC: "It's been a few years since we last sat down for a Q&A with you. In that time we've seen the introduction of very promising young artisans who've named you among the great pipemakers whose work they admired, and that inspired them. Konstantinos Anastasopoulos, Micah Cryder, Ernie Markle come to mind. Clearly your work has been influencing new artisans. But has anyone been inspiring you lately?"

Alex: "Obviously new pipe makers do affect what I'm doing. It's a normal situation, and I'm trying to deal with that. I respect them because there are a lot of real, real talented guys there. I see that as the positive, you know, there are more and better young pipe carvers on the market. It's more motivation for me to move forward. They make a lot of interesting, new stuff which makes me think. You know to paraphrase Bo Nordh, borrow from shapes wherever you can. So, I'm just following that thing too. If I like something, I can adapt it to my own creation, but I set myself a rule. I never try to copy anything, I'm trying to adapt it to what I'm doing.

That's actually happened with Konstantinos once. I saw a pipe of his, and I liked it a lot. It took me quite a while to analyze the shape and understand what exactly I liked in that pipe. That was basically a combination of few lines but they create the visual effect that I like so much, which attracted my eye to start with. That, not the whole shape, just that perspective, I needed to adapt to my own design. And also kind of collaborate that visual effect with some effect I use on my own to make them work together.

There's another guy which I totally like. He is not that new, a few years new. Klaus Zenz. He is a great creator. His vision is totally different compared to mine, but at the same time, we're kind of moving in the same direction. That's very cool. For me, it's always nature, you know, everything organic. Everything that flies or swims, or runs in the forest or grows on the tree. That's the direction. It needs to look like it might grow on a tree, literally. Sometimes with balance, I do make pipes with dramatic, sharp lines, but even those pipes if you look close enough, they're still more organic than technical, than industrial."

SPC: "That's the organic asymmetry?"

Alex: "Not definite symmetry and asymmetry. It's a good thing you mention it because symmetrical pipes are also a bottomless barrel of inspiration. It's a different challenge because they need to be balanced not only by volume balance, or weight balance, they need to be balanced visually. With symmetrical, the challenge involves the wood itself because the wood gives a lot of inspiration. You can ask any pipemaker, and they'll tell you the block itself, it's inspiration on its own. You can rotate it different ways. You can put it on its side, you can put it vertical, and you'll see different positions of the pipe in it. There is more than one possible shape in one block. Sometimes little stuff determines which way to go. Sometimes I have a really great block with great grain, and I have no idea what to do with it: do a straight grain pipe out of it and make it symmetrical or put it on the side and make a blowfish out of it, and it seems like both ways are really good."

SPC: "When you're spoiled for choice what is it that makes the decision?"

Alex: "For myself I kind of create a system. I never take only one block at a time. I usually put a dozen of them on a table, and, again, there's a combination of approaches I have. I do have a lot of sketches. Maigurs makes sketches all the time too, in this way we're very close to that approach of the pipe. I sketch all the time and a lot of times I sketch during lunch and it's like cigarette paper, like tissue paper, covering my table at work and that's what I draw on. It's everywhere in my workshop too. It can happen that I have an inspiration at work, I draw that interesting design, I come home, and I try to find the correct block for it. Sometimes I do find the block, and I follow that idea. Most of the time, what I draw and what I have at the end, it's two different pipes. So I set out just you know, on the way carving, because the wood will dictate a lot of changes. Sometimes it's the opposite. Sometimes I have an idea, I say I want to do a Blowfish, I put the blocks on my table, I start to work with them and draw, and all of a sudden I find this block. I draw for it a straight grain pipe, I put all the other blocks aside, and I start to work on the straight grain. Just because I just found that block and, wow, it just moves me up."

SPC: "When you find something new you tend to go with it straight away"

Alex: "Exactly."

SPC: "If you don't mind us asking, how do you balance pipemaking with home life? We know you just finished a seven-day set that took up a lot of your time. [Alex was actually still working on this set the first time we called him, several days before this interview.]"

Alex: "That's actually a very interesting question. When I was doing my very first set, the famous Egyptian set, it touched that area.. That seven day set, I put everything upside down. I mean the whole, everything, the family was upside down. I was absolutely not normal. That set literally sucked out of me, all power. No mental power, creative power, physical power as well."

SPC: "So were you thinking of taking a break, after this one?"

Alex: "No, I actually switched to normal, everyday pipemaking, and by now I've pretty much come back to normal. Most simple shapes, they don't demand that much creative power, demand that much time to make. That [Egyptian] seven pipe set took me from May until almost August. Only seven pipes. That's roughly two to three weeks per pipe. They were all very complicated. I think that was the second freehand seven-day set I saw in my life and the first one was from Kent Rasmussen."

SPC: "What goes into such a project?"

Alex: "The set is not just seven pipes together. All of those pipes need to be connected. Somehow, you know, in a lot of cases, it's just the same finish, roughly the same grain, and I have nothing against it. It's great. I saw seven day pipes from Dunhill. It was a straight Billiard in all different sizes. That was the greatest idea Dunhill ever had. The pipe number one actually came from the same burl as the last pipe, too. That was cool. That's one way to approach it.

With me, I try to make, somewhere inside my head there's nothing I can do about it, I try to make a set with a theme into the set. With an idea behind the whole set. Why are those pipes together? The Egyptian set had an Egyptian idea. They were Egyptian oriented. There also were ranks; there was a king and a queen and two guardians, so that's the whole idea behind the set.

With this seven day set, the theme was the Fugu fish. It started with, in my opinion, again, I'm not trying to say who was the source, but in my opinion it was Jorn Micke who started to do what was cross-cut. So that was Jorn Micke and then I think practically on parallel was Lars and Toku. Almost on parallel they start to work with the design, they bring it to the quintessential Fugu fish we know. But I too can, I think, I mean, I'm not trying to bang my chest and saying I'm a King Kong, but I think I took it a little bit further with that set. There is... I think it's only the first pipe I made for that set that's a more traditional Blowfish, as we know, and the rest of them are absolutely out of this world. It's just an idea of the cross-cut, and I just tried to bring it to my personal limit; what can I do with that shape?"

In our estimation, what Alex Florov can do is a great deal; we thank him for the opportunity, and the time he set aside to let us pick his brain and share more concerning his background and his thoughts on the art of the pipe. We look forward to seeing how he continues to push that personal envelope in the future.