Published in Pipes and Tobaccos Fall 2008 |
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Origins: Toku's first elongated blowfish (2006) As occasionally happens in Toku's works, his initial ideas for lengthening the blowfish mixed fluid, organic shapes (left-side) with more sharp-edged simplified forms (right-side).
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Evolution: 3-snail graded Sā-ke (2007)
In Toku's first, full-realized "Salmon" pipe, all blocky elements in the prototype have evaporated into a flow of elegant and graceful forms that evoking the supple energy of a swimming fish. I find this blowfish variant especially beautiful and filled with many exquisite touches ... such as the subtle "spur" that emerges from the bowl where a line from the shank flows into it (below, center of the photo); or the eruption of plateau (below, right) that softens the sculptural quality of the pipe and makers it seem more "natural."
Further delicacies in form and line: note the way the raised portion of the bowl flows into a "point" that echoes the spur on the opposite side (above, center of the photo); or the interrelationships between the various curves - including the "dip" formed by the tobacco chamber (above, left center) and the "scalloped" edge of the shank-end (above, right center) |
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Toku's Stem-work Every pipe-maker I've ever met shudders when the subject of mouthpieces comes up. Drilling, shaping, and polishing an ebonite stem consumes a great deal of time and energy and the work seems to be at least 90% drudgery. It's easy for pipe-makers to disparage the boring, tedious work associated with stems - and many also seem to broaden that negative view to encompass the stem's aesthetic function as well. That is to say, some carvers focus all their creative energy on the briar and look upon the stem as an add-on ... an afterthought, an appendage to the main focus of interest, the briar body of a pipe. Teddy and Tokutomi are notable exceptions in their attitudes. Not that they enjoy making mouthpieces - far from it. But as boring as it is to shape and polish ebonite, Teddy and Toku both regard the stem as a central element in a pipe's aesthetic design: their mouthpieces always compliment and extend the lines and forms of their briar compositions. Toku has re-imagined the creative possibilities of ebonite just as he has those of briar. In particular, he often sculpts the rings just above a stem's tenon to reflect lines or forms on the shank or bowl. He's also experimented with large, rare sheets of ebonite, using them to make Cavalier "feet" or shaping them into the oversized sculptural mouthpieces on some of his large Mantas. Toku evokes his "ebonite magic" with the same familiar tools he uses on briar: shaping wheel and Dremel. And, of course, the traditional tool for preliminary shaping of a mouthpiece: the venerable file.
ABOVE: The most traditional stem-tool of all, the file, gives rough shape to the stem. BELOW: Then, to mould the mouthpiece to fit the contours of a particular pipe, Toku turns to shaping wheel and Dremel.
BELOW: Toku changes drills on his Dremel. In front of him on the desk are two completed mouthpieces and a rough-cut stem shaped from a large sheet of (German) ebonite.
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