Pipe design!

Most of you who have visited this blog have figured out that I'm a pipe smoker whose enthusiasm for the world of artisanal pipes has tipped into a bit of an obsession. Okay, that's an oxymoron - it's either an obsession or it's not, right? But so far, I've managed to stay away from actually trying to make a pipe myself. My standards are too high and I know that I'd probably really get sucked into it and I just can't justify the time, not to mention get away with acquiring the necessary equipment - lathe, drill press, band saw, scroll saw, sandblasting cabinet, air compresser, and installing them along with 220 service, a dust collection system, and all the other trappings of a real pipemaking setup in the old sanctuary of our converted church home. Certain members of my family (probably all of them) would wisely disown me.

However, that hasn't stopped me from thinking about the design of pipes, the way that I can't help thinking about the design of any category of object or environment that captures my fancy. So several days ago as I was driving across Lancaster county to Premier Custom-Built, (the cabinet manufacturer who has produced the lion's share of my designs since I started collaborating with them in 1997), my eye strayed to the pipe I was smoking as I took it out of my mouth. It was a Rhodesian variant, a shape that I (along with much of the rest of the pipe smoking world) am fond of; this particular one made by my friend and favorite pipe maker, Rad Davis, who is famous for his riffs on the style. The pipe's smooth finished cap or rim, a narrow vertical polished ring that transitions to a shallow dome, defined by a single groove just below the edge of the rim, is an especially nice feature of this and another of Rad's Rhodesian interpretations that I have in my little collection of his work.

Suddenly a picture flashed across my imagination, and as I was in fast moving traffic on the Route 30 by-pass just north of Lancaster city, I couldn't stop to do a sketch. But it's still legal in Pennsylvania to use a cell phone while driving, so I punched up Rad's number, which he foolishly shared with me awhile back. Getting his recorded message prompt, (he was probably working on another of his excellent sandblasts at the time) I told him that I had this idea . . .  He called back and I was in a design review for my real work, but a couple hours later back in the studio, I did a quick sketch, scanned and emailed it to him, with this message: 

So it's like one of your normal Rhodesian variants, but with a
dished/chamfered top instead of a low domed top. Bowl shaped like half of an
upside down chicken's egg.

 and connected on the phone.

"That's kinda cool!" he said in his southern drawl from his shop in Foley, Alabama. "Ah like it. Ah'll send ya a picture when I'm done". Something like that. Well, a couple of days later, I got an email from him with a bunch of pictures attached, with the message, "Whaddya think?"

photo courtesy of Rad Davis

photo courtesy of Rad Davis

photo courtesy of Rad Davis

photo courtesy of Rad Davis

I won't print my first response (there were more than one) in its entirety, because I used some BAD WORDS, and although they were to emphasize my strong approval, I try to maintain at least some old fashioned decorum here. But here is one of the follow ups:

I just looked through the photos again. Very strong piece of work, Rad. It could have easily turned out clumsy or overdone. That incised ring just inside the edge of the rim was brilliant. Just about all of your work is excellent, but this one is more than that. You took an interesting idea and turned it into art.

then this to my friend and far more experienced pipe aficionado Neill Roan:

This is one of the best overall variant shape pieces I’ve seen from him. The shape and proportions are so close to being stubby and clunky, yet they’re not, which makes it both daring and impossible to categorize. The width of the ebonite bands on either side of the masur birch echo the width of the narrow smooth band above the bowl circumference groove, and their fine proportion is beautifully in scale with the rings in the blast. Together, they are a strong unifying element. The combination of perfect basic shapes – an egg sliced just below the equator and a slightly bent cylinder with its subtle flare - pull together into a confident geometry. The restraint of the very shallow concave smooth brings a marvelous tension to the composition, and the concentric incised ring is a witty and brilliant turn on the typical double ring on more traditional Rhodesians. All in all, it leaves the mental imprint of an iconic shape. It way surpasses the sketch I did. And the blast is REALLY good, the birdseye is fabulous, and the contrast stain is a perfect choice.

Well, I'll stop before I lose any more of you than those who've already said, "When is this ramble going to end?!!" But I before I get back to work, I want to say that it was great fun and a real honor to collaborate unexpectedly, in my small way, with one of the best pipe makers out there, and I'm tickled that the prototype turned out so well. Heck, who knows - maybe it will find its way into my collection of Rads someday. And in parting, this: Rad apparently enjoyed it enough that he immediately made another, a little closer to the original sketch. It sold as soon as he put it on his website last night.

photo courtesy of Rad Davis

Unfurling Spring

After much too early a start to a day of sitting with my eyes focused on this flat screen monitor, and having already spent a couple of hours manipulating abstract lines and shapes in AutoCAD, I took a break to walk down to the woods at the river's edge again this morning. I had my black leather bag that Neil Flancbaum gave me a few months ago, perfectly sized for my sketchbook, folding stool that I've had since I was a teenager, and a tin of a dozen Faber Castell colored pencils from my collection of various tins of art media that have seen too little use. Picked out a beat up Savinelli pipe and loaded it with a strong flavored English blend called Syrian Three Oaks, and headed downstairs and out the front door. I had it in my mind that I would do a vigorous, angry, slashing rendition of some patch of sinister looking spring growth pushing through the brown leaves and deadfall.

But as I walked along the damp, quiet path through the trees and the soft grey morning light, the calm river, the cool air on my face, fresh from last night's light rain, dissolved my aggressive intention. By the time I unfolded my old stool, sat down and started drawing, I found myself remembering the eagerness with which I went out looking for the first woodland flowers as a fourteen year old boy with a box of Nupastels and a pad of charcoal paper, eyes keen to identify Dutchman's Breeches, Trilliums and Wake Robins, Adder's Tongue, and other plants that my grandmother had taught me to recognize and appreciate. Jewels waiting to be discovered and drawn by my impatient young hand. So this morning, instead of scribbling violently, filling the page beyond its borders with dense, heavy tones, I could only bring the lightest touch to my interpretation of the tender purple edged shoots of these young plants, beautiful woodland weeds that I have no name for. Grandma would know, and she would share my enjoyment.springtime shoots with a Savinelli Punto Oro bulldog, 11 x 7 1/2, Faber Castell Albrecht Dürer colored pencils

Morning in the woods

When my family and I moved to Marietta ten years ago, part of the reason I was attracted to this small, quiet borough was its setting along the outside edge of a broad, wooded bend in the Susquehanna River. From our house, it's a very short two blocks and over the berm that carries two sets of Norfolk Southern railroad tracks to a narrow band of tangled woods leading to the river, with a steeply wooded high ridge in view across the fast moving but flat water. The juxtaposition of a wide, flowing river and the metaphoric river of rolling steel was a compellingly poetic image in my mind. I envisioned long, meditative walks as a part of my daily life here, nourishing my spirit in the way that growing up on my parents' farm in the hills of central New York state did when I was a boy.

Yet I've taken advantage of this feature far too little in the time that we've lived here. The demands of work, family, and the driving pace of modern living have made it regrettably easy to allow months to pass without a single excursion down to the river's edge, even as it is virtually just outside our front door. But on this beautiful springlike morning, feeling stressed and dispirited over my purpose in life (sounds melodramatic and corny, but there it is), I stuffed a favorite pipe with a wad of tobacco, hung my black leather bag with sketchbook and pencils inside over my shoulder, and walked down to the riverside.

When I got there, the morning mist was still burning off, and the colors were soft. No one else was out and I had the woods to myself. Soon enough, I wandered off the winding path and into the trees, found a spot to sit, and took out my sketchbook and tin of colored pencils. I set my still smoldering pipe down in the dry, dead leaves and the season's first new growth and began to draw. It wasn't long before I let go of the worries and upset that I'd been carrying around. The restorative power of being out in the untended natural world calmed and soothed me, and once again, whether it resulted in art or not, engaging with that world and responding with pencils on paper gave me back the sense of gratitude that eludes me when I fail to appreciate these simple blessings of being alive and aware.

old leaves and new growth with a Rad Davis squashed apple pipe, 11 1/4" x 8", Faber Castell Albrecht Dürer colored pencils

Update on Sunday, March 18, 2012 at 10:59AM by Scott A. Stultz

a page of little studies, 11 x 7, Faber Castell Albrecht Dürer colored pencils

Sometimes it's fun to just do a little bit at a time as a break and distraction from other work. Started drawing the still bare trees by the river from the studio balcony yesteday near dusk, then lost interest and drew the pipe I was smoking, one of the oldest in my collection, by an obscure maker named Saginario that I ran across at an outdoor art fair in Rochester, New York's Third Ward neighborhood in 1980. This morning, I added the empty old Balkan Sobranie tin that an ebay merchant sent to me for free a couple of years ago. But now, back to WORK.

Countdown to the 2012 Chicago Pipe Show

Only seven weeks from now, a group of dedicated volunteers from the Chicagoland Pipe Collectors Club (CPCC) along with other generous members of the pipe enthusiast community will host the largest pipe show in the world over an extended weekend at the beginning of May, at the Pheasant Run Resort just outside of Chicago in St. Charles, Illinois. Last summer, I was honored to have my offer to do a poster for the show accepted by its organizer, Craig Cobine. My good friend and very good graphic designer Tad Herr contributed his time and skills to frame two pieces of my work in his clean and spare compositions for a handbill and a larger format poster. I can only hope that in some small way, they have served to help promote the event.

I plan to be at the show, and hope to bring a few framed drawings for sale, including the original pastel painting that I did for the poster art. I'll admire beautiful pipes by dozens of artisans from all over the world, leather cases by Neil Flancbaum, hand made tampers. I'll sample all kinds of tobacco until my tongue is burnt like crispy bacon. I'll drink beer in the smoking tent and eat delicious food that's bad for me. But the real reason that I'll be there is not to promote my work or to overindulge in the temptations of the pipe and tobacco collecting world. More than anything else, I'm going there to see people with whom it has been my great and unexpected pleasure to become friends. The value of that, for me, is immeasurable.

Weekend work

It is sometimes such a pleasure and even seems a luxury to have a full weekend day when I can work in the studio without any interruptions other than taking breaks when my focus wavers or I realize that I haven't eaten in too many hours. Today I'm designing and rendering Glasgow cabinetry series examples on the computer. I've made time in the evenings these last few weeks to read essays on the history, theory, and critical analysis of American art, craft, and design between 1920 and 1945, the period from which the inspiration for the Glasgow series springs. It's been awhile since I've done much of that kind of research. Even with the current interest in "mid century modern" design, what happened between artisanal craft and industrial design during those years is still widely under appreciated and misunderstood. I find some interesting parallels between that time and now, and the study is definitely influencing my work. Not, I hope, in an historicist way although certainly informed by history, but through a deeper investigation into the relationship between craft and modern industrial technologies and production, and what it suggests to me relative to form. Along with what's happening in the development of this cabinetry design, the work that Wayne Ritchie and I are doing on a rigorously designed and executed pipe case for my friend Neill Roan, is nearing completion and has also benefitted from this intensified thinking about the impact of technology on craft.

283 seven day set case, computer rendered study, copyright 2012 Scott A. Stultz

pipes by Rad Davis, Will Purdy, and Adam Davidson, 2B graphite and Derwent Inktense pencils