Sandblasted Pear (1104) Tobacco Pipe

A pipe that beautifully blends Danish pipe design from the 1960s and Wojtek Pastuch's own personal aesthetic style, this Pear features voluptuous curvature and soft lines contrasted by an extremely rugged finish. In profile, the dramatic bowl appears to inflate from out of the shank, drooping slightly at the heel but rising quite Ball-like toward the rim. Said rim is chamfered, then, and smooth-polished to contrast the rest of the stummel's dense sandblast. The shank tapers from both the stem and the transition, creating a cinched profile that further emphasizes and draws focus to the bowl, but the shank end adds intricate detail, balancing out the composition: An oft-seen feature on Danish pipes from the '60s, particularly those made by Jørn Micke, was a shank end that flares slightly outward and terminated in a domed aspect — resembling an accent but shaped from the same briar comprising the shank. Wojtek hearkens to that vintage design cue in the piece but more dramatically so, flares the shank end to a stronger degree. The expansion ring along the stem base echoes the shank end's shaping but on a more diminutive scale, incorporating the mouthpiece into the overall design of the piece and urging the eyes forward. The finish, however, is indicative of Pastuch's personal style, dressing the stummel in an extra-craggy sandblast that feels more like meteorite in hand than briar, all while revealing the block's natural grain patterns.