Email address:  pipecalendars@comcast.net

12-month wall calendars containing original, full-color pipe photographs printed on glossy photo paper.  11 x 17 ins. (28 x 43 cm.)

 

About the calendars

Previously Available

How to Order

About the author


From pipe-makers' studios to your own home ...

 

I have been making pipe calendars as Christmas gifts for pipe-makers and a few friends for several years.  The carvers have been delighted with the photo collections and it's been a pleasure for me to see my "calendar handwork" displayed in their studios.

 

In his workshop in the Danish countryside, Lars Ivarsson watches his daughter Nanna at the sanding wheel. A Family Ivarsson Pipe Calendar hangs on the wall (rear right).  See more calendars in pipe-makers' studios.

 

After receiving many requests from other members of the pipe-community to make the productions more available, I decided to reissue in the Fall of 2006 a small number of calendars for 2007.  I selected five, devoted the work of Hiroyuki Tokutomi, Teddy Knudsen, Bo Nordh, the Ivarsson Family, and Smio Satou.

 

UPDATE, JANUARY 2008:  Due to pressures of travel and ill-health, I've had to cancel plans to design new calendars for 2008.  Instead, I will reprint by special order any of the 2007 calendars, with dates corrected for 2008.

This coming fall, I hope to resume my tradition and create some brand new calendars for 2009.


 2008 editions will include the same pictures as 2007, but dates will be adjusted for the new year.
Click on the thumbnails to see the calendar pages

Tokutomi

Teddy
Alien Collection

Bo Nordh

The Ivarssons

Satou

 

2008 Calendar price:

$82

(shipping extra)

Write for more information
or to place an order

INQUIRE

 

The Costs of "Calendar Handwork"

 

The Pipe Calendars are "hand-made" and very labor-intensive.  I shoot and edit all the photographs myself, then use a computer program to design each calendar page (usually two to four pictures of one pipe).  This pre-production process takes between 60 and 120 hours.

 

I print up the calendars on tabloid-sized (11x17) glossy photo paper using a top-of-the-line Epson Stylus Photo 1280.  Since I use only the highest quality mode, each calendar takes 8½ hours to print.

 

After printing, I back the calendars with chipboard and bind everything together with wire spirals on a large, hand-operated binding machine.  (See picture).

 

Due to the dedicated Epson inks and paper and the specialized binding materials, the cost of raw materials runs to a little more than $40 per calendar.  Baseline manufacturing expense increases further since I am unable to print more than ten calendars every four or five days.

 

Considering the number of high-quality pipe photographs in each calendar;  the assiduous attention to details of production;  the amount of time and the expenses involved;  and the limited number of calendars that can be produced ... I believe the price I charge ($85 in 2007) is reasonable and represents good value.

 


Purchasing Information


Pipe Calendars cost:  $ 82

plus shipping


SHIPPING CHARGES:

One calendar to any US postal zone (via Priority Mail)

$8

Overseas and multi-calendar orders

  By weight

International customers may choose between Airmail,

Global Priority and Global Express.


NOTES:  Each calendar weighs a pound.  Packing materials add at least 1/2 pound.  Unfortunately 11" x 17" calendars are too large to fit inside "Flat-Rate" envelopes or boxes.


Payment via Paypal


Procedures

 

Send me an email message with your calendar request.

 

I will reply with a Paypal invoice.

 

When I receive payment for your order, I will print out and assemble your calendar and mail it to you as soon as it is ready (usually within three days).

 


 

For inquiries or to place an order

write to Thomas Looker at:

pipecalendars at comcast.net

 

 

About the calendars

What's Available

 

About the Author

I taught in the American Studies department at Amherst College for twenty years as a visiting lecturer and visiting scholar.  Recently I've become fascinated by the artistry I've encountered in the work of certain master pipe makers.  I now think of myself as a "student of pipes" and I am working on a book about the wide variety of imaginative vision embodied within creative briar carvings.

In the course of my studies, I've taken several thousand photographs of pipes to illustrate and enhance my  reflections and analysis.  I've written many informal essays about the work of Japanese and Danish carvers and I have published an article on Tokutomi and Teddy in Pipes & Tobaccos Magazine (Summer 2006: "To Play Elegantly with Briar" - The Improvisatory Carvings of Hiroyuki Tokutomi).

Since 2004, at pipe shows in Chicago, Richmond, Copenhagen, and Bologna, I have mounted exhibits illustrating Tokutomi's unique creativity and its influence upon other pipe-makers.  In May 2007, I gave a lecture about Tokutomi at the Chicagoland Pipe Show.

 

As a writer and a teacher, I have long been fascinated by the singular importance of the human imagination in shaping our understanding of the world.  My approach to the creativity of pipe-makers and the eloquence of their briar carvings reflects my continuing interest in the startlingly-human impulse to transform that which is useful into that which is also beautiful.

Thomas Looker, Curator
The Briar Gallery
P.O. Box 3038
Amherst, MA  01004

 

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LATEST REVISION:
April 17, 2008