Pete Prevost: Natural Partially Sandblasted Volcano with Bamboo 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.

It's very seldom that we see bamboo-accented pipes from American artisan Pete Prevost, and, of the ones we've seen in the past, all of those pipes have been straight. This Volcano, however, is decidedly the opposite, utilizing its bamboo to achieve a full-bent stance and an impressively dynamic posture. The bowl stands atop a broad base rounded by a firm ridge, the surface of the base bowing out subtly for a softer feel in hand, creating a structure apt to support the walls as they make a sleek and steeply sloped taper to the rim. There's a rather dramatic cinch at the fore wall especially, cultivating a consistent, forward-urging taper through the bowl in silhouette. However, the aft wall also features a unique bit of shaping, as Prevost has shaped the base to form an arced, spur-like area of briar that starts an implied line, which reaches through the aft walls' curve to the rim and enhances the bowl's curvaceousness. The transition is tight and parabolic, giving way to a short, curling shank that tapers swiftly upward to meet three knuckles of bamboo, extending the shank significantly and making its own curve to better poise this piece in an Oom-Paul-like configuration. A sleek and smartly curved saddle stem pairs to the bamboo, and it has been carved to resemble its surroundings at the base, with a subtle ridge set at a slight angle being reminiscent of a bamboo knuckle. Poised for easy jaw-hanging, this pipe's lively look is just as functional as it is engaging, and it boasts a fairly compact footprint and light weight that would make it an excellent companion wherever it's needed. Dressed in a crisp, natural sandblast, the stummel showcases a rippling pattern of ring grain flowing down the flanks of the bowl, while the broad underside has been finished smooth to reveal a dense sea of birdseye with a kiss of plateau near the aft.