Wandi Riyadi Smooth Asymmetric Disc Blowfish Handmade Briar Pipe, New

Description

Over the last decade or so, Indonesia has produced some impressive pipe makers in the ever-expanding global artisan scene. Since taking up pipe making in 2013, West Java’s Wandi Riyadi has shot to international acclaim, and has even inspired something of a “Riyadi school” back in his native land. Riyadi’s work has been inspired by Scandinavinan masters, such as Sixten Ivarsson, Lars Ivarsson, Bo Nordh, and Jess Chonowitch, and the Japanese master Hiroyuki Tokutomi. As gestured, Riyadi himself has also become an influence for numerous other artisans both home and abroad, and has even joined the ranks of pipe makers such as J. Alan, David Huber, Alex Florov, and Cornelius Manz in being invited to design pipes for Zhang Guo Hui’s GH.ZHANG project.

While the blowfish began life as a rather plump design, adequately reflecting its inflated, aquatic namesake, its scope would broaden significantly over the years to encompass a vast range of forms. I suppose that’s also quite fitting—that the term “blowfish” would balloon so significantly—but it is interesting nonetheless. While the original Lars Ivarsson blowfish was stout and slightly squat, other renditions soon followed that were tall and distinctly narrow, such as the disc-like blowfishes of Peter Heeschen. Japanese artisans, like Hiroyuki Tokutomi, could be said to have followed a “middle ground” between the Ivarsson style and the Heeschen, though not without injecting a characteristic asymmetry that broke, once again, with conventions of form. In the case of this pipe, we see Wandi Riyadi tackle yet another blowfish breakaway, this time in the vein of someone like the American David Huber. Like Huber’s renditions, it’s decidedly compact, taking on nosewarmer proportions while simultaneously being wildly complex, incorporating broad, flattened planes, furls and furrows, a mobile, “twisting” physique, and a rim that opens like a mouth for prey (the blowfish is a carnivore, after all). One wonders if the blowfish has ever quite been so “alive” as this particular species—it’s certainly never been as ravenous.

Details:

Length: 4.6″ / 116.8mm

Bowl Width: 0.79 / 20.06mm

Bowl Depth: 1.52″ / 38.60mm

Weight: 1.9oz / 56g