Madao 3000 Natural Sandblasted Asymmetric Cherrywood Sitter Handmade Briar Pipe, New

Description

“Madao 3000” is a strange name for a pipe maker, but it is one, like “Le Nuvole” or “Il Cerchio,” that nonetheless carries with it a great deal of meaning. As the pipe making pseudonym adopted by Beijing-based artisan Wang Tieyuan, “Madao 3000” signifies a disposition and a design philosophy.

In the founding Confucian text The Doctrine of the Mean, for example, it is said that there are the “three hundred rules of ceremony” and “three thousand rules of conduct.” These numbers are not literal, instead symbolizing something else; that there are many rules one must follow in order to be virtuous, but that, given the constant flux of circumstance, it would be impossible specify or quantify every choice and decision an individual encounters on their path to virtue. In other words, “3000” is a metaphor for that which is infinite. “Madao,” on the other hand, is more tongue-in-cheek and self-deprecating, meaning something like “a worn out old man.”

Together, one might interpret such a name as “a worn out old man, nonetheless chasing the infinite.” How does one pursue the infinite? As far as pipe making goes, at least, Tieyuan’s answer is “asymmetry.” While he displays a prodigious talent for crafting the acorn, brandy, and Dublin shapes associated with post-war Danish pipe making, Tieyuan’s favorite shapes are those that go beyond established conventions and categories. Influenced equally by legendary pipe makers such as Kei’Ichi Gotoh, Hiroyuki Tokutomi, and Alex Florov, and the masterworks of classical Chinese painting and poetry, Tieyuan’s strives to make pipes that are abstract and freeform while also being balanced and harmonious. Instead of contrast stains or fanciful adornments, Tieyuan’s pipes are minimalist in dress, especially compared to his peers. When he does use accents, they are intended to serve as focal points rather than the pipe’s focus. If any one part of Tieyuan’s designs is to be its focus, it is its shaping: its elementary lines and figures; its interplay of symmetries and asymmetries; and its palpable senses of motion and rest.

While the majority of Tieyuan’s pipes wear deep, reserved tones of cocoa and burgundy, he will, on occasion, give his sandblasted pipes a near-naked natural finish—though only when the briar is perfectly suited for it. Like any good pipe maker, Tieyuan knows that a natural sandblast must be free of imperfections and possess impeccable gain patterns, which relatively few blocks of even high-grade briar are characterized by. This one for example, possesses remarkably consistent ring grain, as well as dense bird’s-eye, whose relief has been left on full display by a simple, waxed top coat.

Details:

Length: 5.5″ / 139.7mm

Bowl Width: 0.69 / 17.52mm

Bowl Depth: 1.49″ / 37.84mm

Weight: 1.2oz / 36g