|
12-month wall
calendars containing original, full-color pipe photographs printed on glossy photo paper.
11 x 17 ins. (28 x 43 cm.)
|
|
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.
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 Calendar price:
$82
(shipping extra) |
Write for more
information
or to place an order
 |
|
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).
|
|
|
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 |
|
 |
|
LATEST
REVISION:
April 17, 2008
){kind=link}