Madao 3000 Sandblasted Orca 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.

In the case of this orca, there is certainly a great deal of “movement” expressed in the design, despite it being an inherently static block of briar and ebonite. There is also a strong evocation of aquatic life, despite it being a far cry from a figural depiction, as one might find in meerschaum carving. Indeed, when looking at it from the front or the left side, one has the impression of some creature racing toward oneself and then pulling away at the last moment. This is in part achieved through the pipe’s twisting shank and stem, but it also comes from the placement of the chamber and, most importantly, through the line that subdivides the shank and bowl asymmetrically, resulting in sides that alternately “expand” and “contract.” With pipes like this one, Tieyuan’s influences in classical Chinese painting, especially Xiěyì,” are strongly apparent. Xiěyì, after all, aims not to “realistically” represent an object, or objects, of experience, but to capture the experience itself in its totality. Ironically, this means abandoning realism for something much more abstract—something that is intuited, rather than simply seen.

Details:

Length: 5.5″ / 139.7mm

Bowl Width: 0.78 / 19.81mm

Bowl Depth: 1.46″ / 37.08mm

Weight: 1.6oz / 48g