Nate Rose Sandblasted Dublin w/ Italian Lucite Handmade Briar Pipe, New

Description

As I always say, when it comes to pipe makers, what Canada lacks in quantity it more than makes up for in quality. Nate Rose is no exception. A former student of the legendary Canadian artisan Michael Parks, Rose first turned his expertise as an automotive engineer into a career as a pipe maker in the mid-2010s. One of his first endeavors in this vein was a collaboration with Michael Parks on the Commonweal project, which Parks personally selected Rose for. Commonweal pipes took their name from the British Commonwealth, as they were made from stummels turned by Les Wood, of Ferndown, which Parks finished and Rose cut stems for. Though he remains firm friends with Parks, Rose operates as a purely solo carver these days, putting out high-grade pipes via his Rose Pipes. Mixing a expressed fondness for classic Anglo-French shapes with a genuinely experimental streak, Rose can be counted alongside some of his fellow countrymen, such as Parks, Julius Vesz, and Todd Bannard, as well as others in the wider artisan scene, as a pipe maker at the very forefront of the contemporary neoclassical movement.

Ovoid and elliptical forms feature prominently in Nate Rose’s output. Not unlike Louisiana’s J. Mouton, he’s a vocal proponent of opera shapes, for example, at a time when such shapes are all but forgotten. Elsewhere, he frequently incorporates oval shanks into his designs, whether it’s his signature Canadian renditions, as well as shapes where they are far less the norm, like his “Saucer” Rhodesians. Rose’s Dublin shapes are another instance where such motifs frequently come into play. In the case of this one, it’s rather modern, in a manner not too far from the Danish Fancy freehand movement, though it’s also distinctly narrow as far as the bowl is concerned. One could, then, also point to another precedent from post-war Denmark, in the oval-bowl Dublin renditions of Sixten Ivarsson, though perhaps in this instance it is more adequately to simply come back to the traditional opera shape as a point of reference. After all, the opera shape is often considered to be a kind of “vest pocket” pipe, i.e., one that is easily carried around in one’s jacket, on account of its hallmark compact, narrow figure. While its chamber is conical, perhaps, nonetheless, one could call this an “operatic Dublin”? In any case, the pipe also incorporates Rose’s renowned, ring grain sandblast finishing and is fitted with an amber-toned mouthpiece hand-cut from Italian Lucite.

Details:

Length: 5.1″ / 129.5mm

Bowl Width: 0.75 / 19.05mm

Bowl Depth: 1.42″ / 36.06mm

Weight: 1.9oz / 55g