Chris Askwith: Classics For Extroverts

February 7, 2017 by Daniel Bumgardner in Makers and Artists

If you have a taste for classic English pipe shapes, your options as far as color palettes go are fairly limited. Sure, there are many makers and marques who offer pieces wearing the traditional, rich hues of cumberland, along with various brindle-patterned stems, often paired to sandblasted or ruby-stained briar. But what of those of us who, though inclined toward the classics, favor color, texture, and even alternative medium combinations of a more eccentric variety? The answer takes us to the South West corridor of England, to Plymouth, where pipemaker Chris Askwith has made such a style his bread-and-butter, earning his aesthetic the reputation of "classics for extroverts."

There are many who know of Chris's distinctive style, but not many are aware that it came to be through a combination of accident and chance. Speaking with Chris, he told me "I was looking into stem materials and came across polyester. I requested some samples for testing, planning only to use black, ivory, and amber, but was given a wide selection of bright colours. I had seen bright colours used as accent rings on stems and shanks but rarely used as full stems, so I gave it a go." The pronounced contrast of classic shape and bright, modern stem appealed to Chris (as it subsequently did with many smokers), and in furtherance of lending focus to these colorful accent stems, he began to experiment with alternative mediums. He looked at those that would provide a broad, non-traditional palette without distracting the eye from the stems themselves. Inspired by the work of Trevor Talbert, a chance encounter at a craft fair put him in contact with a supplier of English Bog Oak, which he continues to use today for his morta pieces and is the only pipemaker to do so.

And like Chris's use of colorful polyester and English Bog morta, his heralded Weathered Bone finish also came about by chance, though more so as the result of experimentation than anything else. In an apocryphal story that could have come straight from Alfred Dunhill, a treatment test left on a bowl not only brought out an interesting texture, but managed to coax the grain in a remarkably unique way. It went on to become one of his most popular finishes.

And as for how the English carver manages to pair a stem to a given shape, Chris again looks to the classics: "I look at the shape, think about what shape and style they might have done back in the old days, and then choose something bright and garish to make it from... Luckily, working with morta a lot...it works well with a wide range of bright stems, pretty much the opposite of most other pipes where the bowl finish and colour is the main attraction and the stem usually a simple black ebonite."

So, if you fancy yourself an extrovert, or simply a smoker of colorful, yet classic taste, check out Chris's work. We recently put up a special update featuring nine unique and colorful Askwith pipes, in a range of styles, shapes, and color combinations. From compact morta Devil Anses to straight Billiards wearing the carver's distinctive Weathered Bone finish, to a selection of pencil shank shapes, there's plenty to choose from.