Martin Romijn Smooth High Contrast Squat Tomato Handmade Briar Pipe, New

Description

Within the modern artisan community, there are many pipe makers with backgrounds in other forms of art, manufacture, and handicraft, and who apply skills learned in their previous vocations to the creation of their pipes. Some artisans are former machinists; others were carpenters; some were even painters in their past lives. Martin Romijn, on the other hand, belongs to a small minority of pipe makers whose previous career was in stonemasonry. Like Germany’s Frank Axmacher, Romijn spent much of his adult life cutting and sculpting stone, doing so across a broad range of practical and ornamental applications. While those days are now behind him, Romijn still carries with him much of what he learned from working with granite, quartz, and marble. The skills and philosophy he cultivated as a stonemason continue to inform his pipe making endeavors, just as they did when he set his sights on briar nearly a decade ago. And, when asked about his technique regarding the latter, he cracks a wry smile, stating simply that “pipe is already inside the piece of briar, I only have to reveal it by taking away everything that doesn’t look like a pipe!”

To call Martin Romijn’s pipes “plump” would be an understatement, and even those works which are on the shorter side, like this one, nonetheless exhibit the buxom quality that makes his pipes so recognizable. A squat tomato in the post-Scandinavian vein, Romijn’s rendition is as broad and full figured as the best of them, with the result being something that stows easily on one’s pocket without sacrificing on chamber with or a good, sturdy hand-feel. One particularly interesting touch on this pipe is its shank accent, which, rather than being a separate material to the bowl, is simply a ring-like working of the shank itself—something that neatly reflects Romijn’s education in stonemasonry before he set his sights on briar.

Details:

Length: 4.9″ / 124.4mm

Bowl Width: 0.90 / 22.86mm

Bowl Depth: 1.13″ / 28.70mm

Weight: 1.9oz / 54g