Madao 3000 Sandblasted Asymmetric Standing Dublin w/ Boxwood 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.

Even in the case of pipes like this one, whose structural requirements are very strict, Tieyuan does not shy from the difficult task of holding to his design principles in its construction. The basic shape is a well-trodden path, especially in 21st century American artisan pipe making: the Dublin sitter, à la Pohlmann, Chheda, Johnson, and the many that have followed them. Tieyuan’s rendition is exceptionally well carved and finished, sitting exactly as it should and brimming with layers of dense ring grain. But it’s also exceptionally nuanced, juxtaposing more or less straight lines and geometric figures with others that gently weave and overstep their expected bounds. As is something of a hallmark of Tieyuan’s pipes, both the shank and stem snake across the pipe’s horizontal axis, tracing a slight “S” curve between them that nonetheless allow for an even draft hole, running from the slot of the mouthpiece to the base of the chamber.

Details:

Length: 6″ / 152.4mm

Bowl Width: 0.77 / 19.55mm

Bowl Depth: 1.40″ / 35.56mm

Weight: 1.9oz / 54g