Pipe Highlights: March 2015

March 31, 2015 by Chris Johnson in Pipe Line

This month we've seen new pipes from a number of talented carvers, including newcomer Gustavo Cunha of Martelo Pipes. If you missed any of these briars during the regular update, don't worry... many of them are still on the site. Here's a quick look at some of March's pipe highlights!

Michael Lindner - Sandblasted Author (C1)

Michael Lindner's renditions of the old Comoy's style of Author. This sandblasted variant is a little more plump than both the Comoy Author shape and Lindner's other Comoy-inspired Author in this same batch, with a slightly deeper transition, and correspondingly, a little more girth to the shank and stem, particularly emphasized along the line of the underside.

Peter Heeschen - Smooth Bent Egg with Silver (A)

Here we are presented with Peter's original Egg shape, with wide, curvaceous hips tiger striped with cross grain, a warm honey contrast stain bringing to bear patches of birdseye to the fore and aft, a lithe and thin shank adorned in a silver accent, and a vulcanite stem with just a hint of downturn.

Ichi Kitahara - Smooth Acorn with Horn

Smooth, clean, and sporting a lot of lift to the lines of shank, stem, and bowl, this Ichi Kitahara design combines the sort of gentle symmetry more associated with Danish pipemaking with a good kick of subtly played dynamism — the latter notably complemented by the discrete alteration of adding a canted line to the base of the stem. Fittingly, the finish is a bengal contrast that's strong on warmth, and the grain it brings out is tight and lively from end to end.

Martelo - Smooth Liverpool

Out of the several Billiard-family shapes presented in this, our first batch of Martelo pipes, this Liverpool I would say is the stockiest. That's not to say it actually is stocky by any stretch, but here Gustavo did go with a shorter overall length, and just a very slight bit more substance, relative to the other proportions, for transition, shank, and stem. I'd say it was the right choice, and shows a keen eye for how changing one measurement (here, length) calls for a keen eye to spot what else might need be altered, however subtly, to produce an ideally balanced aesthetic result.

Or to put it another way, I can't picture this Liverpool shape getting any better. Gustavo nailed it.

Scott Klein - Smooth Blowfish

A rather modern and architectural take on the Blowfish shape, here Scott's taken the classic form and lent it a sharper sense of line by adding extra panels and fluting lines along the shank and base. Rather than shifting the visual weight to the shank, as one might expect, it actually works to guide the eye into the rather complex disc-like cheeks to either flank, while lending the whole silhouette a stouter, sturdier feel. Aside from all that, those extra panels also work to orient and frame the grain — in this case, that means a whole lot of flame, flanked to either side by walls of birdseye.

Peterson - St. Patrick's Day 2015 (X220) Fishtail

Finished in the deep emerald green, carved Celtic knotwork, and tri-part nickel and green acrylic of the 2015 St Patrick's Day line, we see the "X220", an iconic, very "Peterson" design in its heavy, flowing lines and thick proportions.

Scott Thile - Smooth Volcano (FH) (333)

Another familiar design from Scott Thile, this rather Japanese-inspired Volcano has cropped up a number of times since we first began carrying Scott's pipes. Though, of course, varying slightly from shape to shape, they all share a similar trait: a wave-like aesthetic realized by smooth lines running along the underside from heel to button. The strong taper up to the rim, paired with the crisp, forward-rocking heel and sweeping transition, emphasizes this motion with a crest-like backwards gesture — guiding the eye back to the wave's origins at the stem. It's presented here in a bold contrast stain, highlighting all that finely-stranded flame grain jumping up from base to rim.

Michail Kyriazanos - Smooth Prince with Bronze

While Michail sent us some very fine pipes in this latest bunch, the Prince you see here was the quick favorite of those of us who gave the lot a look over. Simply put, he's taken the already dapper classic and streamlined it into something that combines the best of both the old and modern approaches to shaping; fine, delicate proportions with a sleek forward motion.

Also noteworthy is his interesting choice of accent — bronze. While brass is common enough, I can't recall the last time I saw a briar accented with the preferred metal of ancient (and particularly ancient Greek) sculptors. It adds just a right amount of flash, while keeping the accent more understated than say, gold or silver, and by consequence serves perfectly to keep attention focused on this composition's form and lines (not to mention grain).

Yuki Tokutomi - Smooth Pot

Yuki, as evidenced by her back catalogue, is a fan of small shapes. Basically, take the shaping aesthetic of the Danish masters that both influenced and trained her father, Hiroyuki, mix in some Japanese naturalism, and then shrink them down to pocket proportions. To me at least, it's the perfect mix, as pipes with Danish sensibilities tend to be a little large while this Pot, for example, measures only a little over four and a half inches. Yet as small as it is, it manages to convey a lot of style, with a bowl that features an Apple-like waist, stretched out so the bowl is a gentle oval in cross-section, contrasting the abrupt ending in a plateau rim, and balanced perfectly with a tiny sliver of a saddle stem.