marTelo: Smooth Jatobá with Bamboo and Jupati Tobacco Pipe

Since 2015, Smokingpipes has held the American Pipe Making Exposition, a celebration of America's finest artisans who gather together a bespoke selection of their best work, all revolving around a central theme. For 2024, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Expo, Smokingpipes has expanded participation to include entrants from around the world in what will henceforth be known as the Global Pipe Making Exposition. Fittingly, 2024's theme is bamboo, the same as the first Expo, and it's an opportunity for carvers worldwide to show off their most inventive, innovative compositions.

Crafted by Brazilian artisan Gustavo Cunha, marTelo pipes boast a sophisticated shaping style that marries sleek, aerodynamic angles with soft, supple curves, creating a tantalizing confluence of line and texture that keeps both the eye and hand engaged. The Jatobá is one of Cunha's signature shapes, arguably the most recognizable shape that he produces, and it's named after the fruit pods of the jatobazeiro tree whose shape inspired the outline of this profile. This particular take on the Jatobá emphasizes the aerodynamic aspects of its build, with sleek, clean lines and an expressive posture. The bowl is supported by a flat, trim heel set at an angle, and it gives way to massively tall walls that take on a steady, easy flare out toward the high-set, ridgeline-wrapped waistline. At more than four inches tall, these walls dominate the composition, grabbing one's attention immediately thanks entirely to their towering presence and making a subtle curve to the aft as they rise to the rim. In silhouette, the bowl showcases an impressively bold stance, its proud fore wall lending it an air of confidence while the angles of its rim and heel create implied lines that draw attention to the shank and stem.

The shank itself is brief and tapers swiftly out of a wide transition to meet a densely packed stretch of bamboo comprising six knuckles of the sturdy grass. This length of bamboo is paired to the stummel via a reverse tenon, meaning it can be removed for easy cleaning and travel whenever necessary. The remarkably even rhythm of the bamboo is continued by a bead-like accent of jupati at the junction to a sleek, lengthy saddle stem made of pale yellow vulcanite, and the pattern's style is continued to the expansion-ring-wrapped base of said stem. The stummel is dressed in a rich, warm, chestnut-toned contrast stain that reveals dense strips of cross grain framing the flanks, rim, and heel of the bowl, while the fore wall acts as a monument to a mystifying galaxy of birdseye that covers it completely: one of the best displays of the grain I've ever seen.