Peter Heding: Natural Smooth Whale with Bamboo (Diamond) 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.

Compared to other takes on the Whale carved by Peter Heding in the past, this one stands out immediately for its remarkable dynamism and impressive verticality, juxtaposing smooth, clean curves against a more rugged organicism. The Whale shape is a unique style of Freehand whose exact elements can vary from artisan to artisan, though this particular rendition is reminiscent of the Speared Fish shape, with a transition that's fairly centered on the stummel and a brief, tapering shank oriented in concert with the bowl to keep the transition nearly parabolic. This shank is met by a trim band of black vulcanite that punctuates the junction to a lengthy stretch of bamboo comprising six knuckles of the dense grass, capped with another band of black vulcanite and a matching saddle stem poised for comfortable smoking. Both the stem and shank include a divot carved to match an existing divot in the surface of the bamboo, and the stem additionally features a firm expansion ring that continues the natural rhythm of the bamboo through the aft side. This spear-like arrangement of shank and stem is situated at a jaunty angle and follows through the bowl stylistically to emerge out of the fore wall as a thick, short, flared bit of briar capped with a broad vulcanite foot: the arrangement allowing this pipe to sit stably on a flat surface.

The bowl is decidedly nontraditional, comprising most of the stummel save for the shank and briar extension out of the fore, its shape in profile a horn-like expansion of burl that flares out from a pair of sharpened, fin-like points at the aft. These points are situated at the flanks, and they mark the start of a gradual curve that broadens consistently along a pair of panels, which line the sides all the way to the rim and create a vast dome at the fore that curls down and around past the transition and stem. From a smoker's perspective, the stummel's breadth remains fairly consistent, with just a bit of expansion near the middle that tapers away near the rim and creates a delightfully varied appearance depending on one's point of view. The ample curvature that flows along the flanks of the stummel naturally guides the eye forward, and its sweeping, fluid lines manifest an air of lively momentum, while the shank and bamboo extension create a starkly rigid and organic presence that nicely balances the visual weight. Dressed in a light, honeyed stain, the stummel showcases some truly incredible grain, as dense streaks of flame and cross grain follow the briar's trajectory exactingly along the flanks: evidencing Heding's talent for reading briar's grain. What's more, the broad, domed panel at the front of this pipe provides a canvas for a truly stunning ocean of birdseye that's absolutely mesmerizing to behold and commended by Heding's superlative Diamond grade.