Todd Johnson: Smooth Calabash with Bamboo and Boxwood and Deng Feng Ceramic (with extra Boxwood Bowl) (Phalanx) (Q) Tobacco Pipe

Since 2015, Smokingpipes has hosted the American Pipe-Making Exposition, celebrating the ingenuity and talent of artisan carvers across the United States. However, in 2024 the Exposition expanded to include all pipe makers around the world — the Global Pipe-Making Exposition, the first of its kind. Though broadened in participation, the Expo's format remained consistent with previous years: Artisans designed and fashioned pipes centered on a singular theme, distinct to each year, expressing the motif according to their own creative visions. For the first Global Pipe-Making Exposition, we returned to the Expo's very first theme: bamboo.

A pipe that seems to defy physics, this Calabash from Todd Johnson expands his already impressive portfolio. In profile, the pipe reveals a wonderfully sinuous form, as the stem curve perfectly matches the bamboo's opposite trajectory before sweeping into a curling briar stummel. It's as if the pipe itself is growing from a tree, drooping the briar lower and lower as it ripens. The bamboo supports this organic motif, and its eccentric nature provides intrigue and intricate detail as it expands and twists toward the stem. Taking it a step further, even, Johnson fashioned the stem base from boxwood but hand-carved it to continue the bamboo's aesthetic. It's so seamless that it's nearly impossible to discern exactly where the bamboo ends and the boxwood of the stem begins. It's, then, continued by a split stem of two different vulcanites: one of honey-mustard hue to complement the bamboo and briar and one of traditional Ebonite.

Compared to the bamboo, the briar portion of the pipe is rather traditional for a Calabash: It expands upward through the curled transition before terminating at the removable cap. Johnson has fashioned two caps for this piece though. One features a briar tobacco chamber surrounded by pale boxwood, while the other is of handcrafted ceramic by one of the world's premier potters — Qiu Deng Feng.

Qiu Deng Feng is a revered potter from Taiwan who specializes in artisan teaware, and he made the clay chamber cap for this Todd Johnson Calabash. The art of crafting teapots in China dates back centuries, and it uses a special type of clay named after the city of Yixing, China. Yixing clay is prized for its elevation of the tea-drinking experience; over time the clay absorbs trace amounts of the tea, creating an interior coating that improves the brewing process and the tea's flavor. Like many pipe smokers who reserve specific pipes for specific tobacco blends because of the flavors imparted to the briar, tea connoisseurs will brew only one type of tea in individual teapots. As with pipes, teapot craftsmanship is regarded as a form of functional art, merging technical engineering with stunning aesthetics, and teapot collectors regularly pay tens of thousands of dollars for teaware potted by master artisans. Deng Feng is one of these master artisans, and Johnson commissioned this special Calabash chamber cap from him personally — an homage to his own love for tea and artisan teapots, as well as his time spent in China earlier in life. It's a beautiful addition to an already superlative pipe, adding meaningful significance and a beautiful, teal splash of color — all combining to have received Johnson's highest grade of Phalanx Q.