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NOTES: Teddy
has always shown extraordinary flexibility in his shaping of bowls and
bowl-rims. Over the years, his variations on the horn have expressed
particular creativity and this new pipe continues that tradition.
Teddy's approach to this composition started with a slight change to his
normal shaping of the horn. Inspired in part by the grain (and in
part by his inveterate playfulness), Teddy extended and broadened the
curve along the front of the pipe, while sharpening the line along the
back. Teddy then modified the subtle enlargement of the bowl thus
produced by adding small indentations on the left and right front of its
tubular shape. These are very difficult to photograph but I have
marked the "squeezed" portions of the bowl in the image below: the
flattened surface resembles finger-marks gently pressed into the sides of
a clay pot.
The indentations are difficult to see with the naked eye, but they are
obvious to the fingers ... and add a great deal of interest to the tactile
senstations of holding the pipe.
While the variations to the horn's sides are quiet and subtle, Teddy's
alterations to the bowl's rim are bold and striking. Of course, the
"wavy bowl top" is one of Teddy's signatures and something he has done
almost from the start of his pipe-making. But in this pipe, Teddy
sweeps the back of the rim up higher and more dramatically than usual;
he also brings it to an unusual rounded point. While this style is
generally consistent with a number of his earlier horn variations, I can't
help but see a particular echo from one of Teddy's most important recent
compositions, his first Seal (2004). |
