Scarlett Johansson vs. the Klingon

I've been engaged in or following several recent discussions on pipe aesthetics, design principles, pricing, and the "obligations" of an aspiring carver. It may be worth mentioning that this post could be offensive to some. It is not intended as such, but if your sensibilities are delicate, or if you are typically engaged in acts of self aggrandizement, you may wish to hit the "back" button and pretend this entry does not exist.

To aspiring carvers, let me say this. Aesthetics, especially in the realm of crafted objects, is not purely subjective and "beauty" is not strictly "in the eye of the beholder." We are all wired in a particular way to "see" certain things--things like symmetry, balance, continuity, etc. I'm not suggesting, for instance, that a smooth pipe is more beautiful than a blasted one, or even that a Chonowitsch is necessarily more beautiful than a Stanwell. What I am suggesting is that a pipe can be, more or less, objectively ugly, ill formed, or poorly designed. I know. I have handled many such pipes and made some over the years as well. 

To use an exaggerated example, let's take someone who is very collectively viewed as beautiful, Scarlett Johansson, and contrast her with a Star Trek klingon: 

Scarlett Johansson

Klingon

Now my guess is that only a few would find the Klingon more attractive than Miss Johansson--or even attractive at all, for that matter. The only real point of this admittedly extreme example is that we are generally wired to recognize beauty in the same things. That does not mean that everyone will always agree--otherwise aesthetics would be objective rather than collective, and clearly they are not. I've recently made this argument on a web forum that I post to. Below I've summarized my response to the suggestions that A) "beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and B) if someone buys a pipe that means it must have been well made.

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"Yes, there is a subjective element to design, but there is also an objective element that nobody seems willing to talk about. Since the "golden ratio" has been brought up, I will use that as an example, though Scarlett Johansson may work just as well.

Many of the objects in nature that are almost unanimously regarded as beautiful employ this ratio. The word "employ" isn't exactly right since there is no intentionality with a flower, it just is, and it is beautiful. The translation is that our brains are hard wired to regard certain things as beautiful for reasons having to do with everything from biology to socialization. "Tastes" change, but there are constants--like the way that one line relates to another, or the repetition of certain curves, or the constant gradient increase/decrease in thickness or diameter along an arc.

Now unless your trained to see (and speak) that way, you don't see something and say "the diameter of that flower's filament decreases regularly and gradually along an implied arc and therefore I find it pleasing." Instead, your brain puts this together and basically just informs you that the flower is pretty. 

I would argue that it is little different with a pipe. You see it, and you know instantly that it is beautiful. In most cases, this is because the lines move in harmony together, the arcs are regular, the design is cohesive, everything "works." Your brain processes all that data and just sends the signal "beautiful" to your conscious mind. Yes, people can respond differently to the same stimuli, but let's remember Scarlett and the Klingon.

The other point I want to respond to is that "the market" has something to say about "success" in design. The market is a factor, but not an especially reliable one. The reason is that there are so many other factors playing into a decision to purchase something that it can't be boiled down to "these pipes sell because they are beautiful and well formed."

All you've got to do is look on eBay at the bidding wars that occasionally take place over some truly heinous creations. When this happens--and especially when it's a new/newer carver--I think the wrong message is actually sent. One thing I know to be true is that the ugliest, most ill formed pipes I have ever made have sold. It's bad, I know, but the market cannot always be relied upon either to reward excellent design, or to punish poor design. Those of us who make pipes for a living, who have to have a trained eye, and who depend on that eye to help us bring excellent pipes to market, have pretty consistent opinions on which carvers have really got "chops" and which carvers have just managed to find some particular sub-segment of a niche market to sell to. No one talks about it publicly, but if you get in a room with five professional pipemakers, they will quickly distinguish between makers who know how to carve pipes, and makers who have simply found some way to sell pipes. Generally speaking, I consider it a more legitimate indicator of design success to be included amongst the former. If marketability were always an indicator of excellence in one's craft, we wouldn't have to endure so many bad movies and so much terrible music. I'm not even sure Starbucks would exist! But I digress. Suffice it to say, "someone bought it" is NOT a suitable answer to the questions 'was it beautifully made? Was it an excellent design? Was it well executed?'"

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I realize this may not be the most popular opinion, but I think it's necessary information for any aspiring professional pipe carver. Too often, I think a new carver is given a false sense of his abilities by a few early sales. Collectors jump to be the first on the Carver X bandwagon and end up damaging the carver in the process. If a carver is not allowed to develop somewhat organically without a would-be "taste maker" pushing his wares to all their collecting buddies, the carver will usually A) burn out fast and bright, or B) never fully develop to the level he aspires to. 

Early in my pipemaking career and after some early "successes"--by which I mean sales--I sold a pipe to Toren Smith, a very acquisitive and important collector at the time. When he received the pipe, he simply told me it was not up to standard, especially for the $300+ price tag. He wouldn't say more in an e-mail, preferring to critique the pipe in person when we saw one another at an upcoming pipe show. When we did, Toren systematically and very matter-of-factly obliterated this pipe as the ill-formed, improperly engineered, lump that it was. This is, perhaps, the most important thing that ever happened to me as an aspiring pipemaker--complete unadulterated failure.  So I picked up the pieces of my shattered pride, went back home and set to work at bringing my pipes to the point I thought they were already at. The following year, this finicky uber-critic proceeded to buy about a dozen of my pipes. That first failure and rejection hurt, but without it I would likely have been satisfied with the mediocrity I had achieved.