A New Schule

I will start by saying that I credit my own teachers--especially Tom Eltang--for taking the time to help me develop my skills some ten or so years ago. This is not a process that took place over the course of an afternoon or weekend, but rather several years. Because of Tom's generosity, I feel and have felt a sense of obligation to share my own expertise with other aspiring carvers. Over the years, I've had the pleasure of working with and helping to supplement the skill sets of some very talented carvers, including Jeff Gracik, Brad Pohlmann, Adam Davidson, and Steve Morisette. These are guys who desperately wanted to learn, and to create. All of them had aspirations of becoming professional carvers--actually moving from hobbyists to working artists, and I would affirm that this is fundamentally different than simply wanting to make a few nice looking pipes each year.

Two rusticated Cutties. This is the first shape Tom ever taught me to make.

Love Geiger, a Swedish pipemaker who himself made his way from talented hobbyist to full-time professional recently said this about the journey.

" I believe that if you are serious about making pipes and really learning you will seek the live advice of a professional, by one on one interaction or spending the cash to visit them..

In this time we don't have the luxury of real apprenticeship, but just visiting a maker you look up to for a day or a few hours will grant so much more and give you a feeling what it takes and is like making pipes for a living.

So many have romantic dreams of "making it" and living off selling their smokable art but more have failed than succeeded in this, because it isn’t easy even with natural talent ect.
It requires discipline, luck, good connections and living on a tight budget for years for most of us. And even then there are no guarantees.

The sooner one gets a feeling of how it really is like " living with pipes" behind the glamour and $1000+ pipes they can set their goal on what level they would like to achieve and what they want to get out of it..Frustration and poverty is no fun... having a good hobby can be much more rewarding for most..

I know of very few if any professionals who have not in some way at some point visited other more experienced makers to learn.. I've done so a few times and intend to do so again as for me it is so inspiring and a kick in the butt to get productive.

Personally it took me 3 years of fooling around in the shop and wasting money on the "wrong" tools and methods before I finally did and even if it might cost you a plane ticket in the long run money could be saved.. "

I think there's great wisdom in what Love has to say here. Being a real live working artist is not easy. Those who imagine otherwise are simply delusional. It is a great blessing to make a living doing something that you love, but it requires sacrifice, often financial sacrifice, and far more dedication than most ever imagine. It also requires great skill, a very keen eye, and an understanding--innate or developed--of fundamental design principles. If you want to make pipes successfully you're going to have to develop these skills. This is not something that happens overnight, and it is not something that can happen simply by poking around on internet bulletin boards. 

New pipemakers are "made" by older pipemakers, not by self-important collectors, not by eBay, and not by themselves. In the Presbyterian church, an individual with a call to ministry is said to be "under the care" of his/her presbytery. This is a process that ensures an individual is provided with the necessary care, encouragement, wisdom, and example to succeed. I would advocate a similar model for aspiring pipemakers, and encourage other established pipemakers to engage in the process as tutors. 

Pipemaking is a dying art. In the past decade we have lost Sixten Ivarsson, Bo Nordh, and Jorn Micke. Poul Rasmussen has been gone for many years now. More recently Peter Hedegaard has died. Much of what is known and passed on about pipemaking lies in the hands and heads of masters who have been taught by masters. The only way for that knowledge to continue is to train new masters, and to that I am resolutely committed. 

Renewing America

Today is, by all accounts, an historic day. Within a single generation of the Civil Rights struggle, and only three generations removed from the shameful convention of slavery and oppression, we installed today a "black" man as the President of the United States, in many ways unraveling the threads from that cloak of racism draped over so much of of America's history.  Today, for the first time in a very long time, I am proud to be an American. For those of us who cast our votes for Obama, and supported his campaign both with our time and our resources, this is the culmination of our efforts and the realization of our hopes. Certainly there are those less inclined toward President Obama's views and policies, and to them I would suggest that this is a time for celebration, not of anyone's particular politics, but of our potential as a nation to move beyond race and realize the dream of another great American prophets wherein each man is judged by the content of his character. My prayer for our new president is that he would be a man of strong character promoting such policies as would bring about greater equity and justice, that would support life in all its forms, that would enjoin us to be better stewards of our planet, better neighbors, that would affirm the dignity of every person, ban torture, and advocate for the de-escalation and eventual banishment of nuclear weapons from the Earth. 

Only time will tell if Mr. Obama, now President Obama, will lead us down that path toward a more perfect union, but today is not so much about that. Today is about what we--"we the people"--have done in nominating a man who, only a generation ago could not walk into a public restroom, as our 44th president. That is an historic event, and I have chosen to mark it in my own little way, with a very special pipe to commemorate the day. Few probably know this, but President Obama's father was a pipe smoker, so clearly the man comes from good stock.

Barack Obama's father puffing on a nameless bulldog.

This piece, not unlike President Obama, is both "black" and "white." It is a somewhat more contemporary take on an otherwise very classical shape. The blast is deep and well defined if somewhat unpredictable. It does not entirely conform--it is not exactly a cross grain nor exactly a ring grain--but has the best elements of both. Overall, this is a very handsome and well-formed piece. It will look great with a suit, but will also be right at home being smoked on the back deck. Finally, while this piece is very symmetrical, following the line along the shank and stem, it does perhaps list just slightly to the left.  

This pipe is SOLD.

Ceci n'est pas une pipe.

There is a great deal of debate between so called "smokers" and "collectors" about what a pipe's true purpose is. The former designate it as a humble tool, something that is intended to combust tobacco, nothing more. The latter generally prefer that, as well as functioning efficiently as a tool, the pipe also look beautiful and have a certain je ne sais quoi, if you will. For some collectors, the fact that a pipe has the ability to perform a task, to operate as a tool by burning tobacco, is purely secondary or perhaps even inconsequential. 

This, I would argue, is the point at which art and craft merge. Were the maker to take any less care in engineering the piece efficiently as a tool, the piece would be significantly diminished and would move from being the highest expression of its form to a mere object, a thing. If, for instance, a pipe did not have a draft hole, it would, in many ways, cease to be a "pipe." This is why, in any given medium, it is important to operate within certain parameters. With the bounds of the expression limited, the artist/craftsman must call upon increasingly greater skill and creativity in order to articulate something extraordinary. Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention. 

One needs only to think of Sixten's skillful use of bamboo during the war. Briar was not being exported from italy, there was a limited amount, and blocks were cut in half to stretch the supply. Since pipes need shanks--though one can point to exceptions for this--Sixten engineered a beautiful, elegant, and ultimately successful expression of "the pipe," using bamboo instead of briar for its shank. By moving outside the general principles of pipe aesthetics yet staying within the confines of what properly constitutes a pipe, Sixten elevated the expression of form within the medium, "pipe." 

For those of us that hope our work will be judged to have done likewise,  the boundaries of expression are not a static force, but a malleable set of principles whose governance we submit to willingly. In the end, the artist works collaboratively with such boundaries in order to elevate the craft. 

For my own part, I care little if a pipe is smoked or simply admired as a functional object. Over the years, I have created multi-thousand-dollar pipes that I knew would never see a flame, and others that, to my delight are smoked on a very regular basis. To my mind, a pipe's "true purpose" is not necessarily fulfilled when it is smoked, but when it is enjoyed. 

Zeh Piiiipes!

Many of you have recently asked "Now that you're back making pipes . . . where are the pipes!" The answer to that is that I've been catching up on some orders, working on some new techniques, and not putting a whole lot into the open market right now. For those of you who'd like to see some photos of recent work--including several available pieces--here ya' go. If you'd like to be added to the mailing list, or have questions about the available pieces, please drop me a line and let me know. Soon, I'll add pieces to the newly redesigned Todd-M-Johnson website, where there will be space for many more photos of each piece. Please note that pieces are marked "Available" below and not above their corresponding photos. Stay tuned for more.

Swoop-tailed Blowfish

SOLD

Christmas Calabash (Phalanx Grade)

Conoid Blowfish with floating saddle stem (Phalanx Grade)

Long-Shanked Egg

SOLD

Shigeru Acorn

SOLD

Matador

Blasted Origami with hippo tooth

Blasted Blowfish

Blasted Peewit

Blasted Scoop with Ivory (1.2 oz.)

Samurai Volcano

Blasted Dublin with black and white Ebony (1.0 oz.)

Blasted Blowfish with Cumberland stem (.9 oz.)

Smooth Blowfish (Hoplite)

Straightgrain Freehand (Hoplite)

Good to be a Pipemaker

For the last couple of months, I've been working my way back into a regular "shop-routine." It's been some time since I was able to string together more than about two consecutive half-days in here. Thankfully, I'm now able to wake up on the third story, walk down to the second story to have breakfast with my wife and kids, and then commute to work on foot, down the steps to the first story where my shop is located. This is a hell of a lot better than fighting traffic across town to get to my office where I was responsible for 17 people and all of their problems. My time as a big-shot executive taught me a great deal. It taught me that we're all capable of accomplishing far more than we think, that dealing justly with others does not guarantee just treatment for oneself, that I'm more present as a husband and a father when my mind is not racing to institute new marketing strategies, and that I would prefer to limit my time in custom tailored suits to several hours each Sunday. 

With this transition back into pipe making, the pace of life is slowing down. What's ironic is that I couldn't see just how frenetic it had become until I was viewing it in retrospect. Now I split wood each morning instead of fielding calls and e-mails on my Blackberry. Instead of stopping at Starbucks--Lord, do they make bad coffee--and ordering a medium dark roast in a giant cup so that it wouldn't slosh out and spill in my fancy car, I sit and enjoy an entire pot of French-press before ever picking up a block. I always knew that I would come back to pipemaking. I just didn't realize what a huge part of my life it was. More so, I didn't realize what a part of our family life it was. Both of my boys, Cooper (4) and William (2) spend the better part of their day pretending either to be Firemen or pipemakers. They visit me in the shop, stoke the fire, put on my respirator and sweep up wood shavings.

In brief, I'm able to keep far better company these days. I love to listen to them running around upstairs, Mom chasing after them, all of it ending in a huge pile of thuds and laughter just above me in the living room. Nowadays, I'm always home for lunch, I never spend time stuck in traffic, and I can ignore Tennessee's laws about a smoke-free workplace. To quote my friend Tom Eltang, "It's good to be a pipemaker."